Brian Christian (Author of Algorithms to Live By)

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Brian Christian

欧宝娱乐 Author

Born

in Wilmington, DE, The United States

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Nonfiction, Science, Philosophy

Member Since

January 2016

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Brian Christian is an acclaimed author and researcher whose work explores the human implications of computer science. He is known for his bestselling series of books:

The Most Human Human (2011) uses his experience as a human 鈥渃onfederate鈥� in the Turing test to examine what chatbots reveal about the nature of language and communication. It was named a Wall Street Journal bestseller, a New York Times Editors鈥� Choice, and a New Yorker favorite book of the year.

Algorithms to Live By (2016), co-authored with Tom Griffiths, applies computational principles to everyday human decision making, painting a counterintuitively human picture of rationality. It was named a #1 Audible bestseller, Amazon best science book of the year, and MIT Technology Rev Brian Christian is an acclaimed author and researcher whose work explores the human implications of computer science. He is known for his bestselling series of books:

The Most Human Human (2011) uses his experience as a human 鈥渃onfederate鈥� in the Turing test to examine what chatbots reveal about the nature of language and communication. It was named a Wall Street Journal bestseller, a New York Times Editors鈥� Choice, and a New Yorker favorite book of the year.

Algorithms to Live By (2016), co-authored with Tom Griffiths, applies computational principles to everyday human decision making, painting a counterintuitively human picture of rationality. It was named a #1 Audible bestseller, Amazon best science book of the year, and MIT Technology Review best book of the year.

The Alignment Problem (2020) is a nuanced investigation of the ethics and safety challenges confronting the field of AI, and a portrait of the community of researchers working to address them. Nature called it 鈥淢eticulously researched and superbly written,鈥� and The New York Times called it 鈥淭he best book on the key technical and moral questions of AI.鈥� Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella named it one of the books that most inspired him. The Alignment Problem was a Finalist for Los Angeles Times Best Science & Technology Book of the Year and won the Excellence in Science Communication Award from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

As a researcher, Christian鈥檚 work spans from computational cognitive science to AI alignment and has appeared in peer-reviewed journals from D忙dalus to Cognitive Science, and he is a recipient of the Clarendon Scholarship, the University of Oxford鈥檚 most competitive research scholarship. He is affiliated with the AI Policy and Governance Working Group at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Center for Human-Compatible AI and the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society at UC Berkeley, and the Human Information Processing Lab at the University of Oxford.

As a writer, Christian鈥檚 work has been translated into nineteen languages, and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Wired, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and The Paris Review. His writing has won several literary awards, including fellowships at Bread Loaf, Yaddo, and MacDowell, publication in Best American Science & Nature Writing, and an award from the Academy of American Poets.

As a software developer, Christian has contributed to a number of foundational open-source projects, including Ruby on Rails and Bundler. He served for nine years as Director of Technology for the innovative literary publisher McSweeney鈥檚, where he led a small team responsible for the company鈥檚 technical stack.

As a speaker and public intellectual, Christian has been a featured guest on The Daily Show, The Ezra Klein Show, and Radiolab, and has lectured at Microsoft, Google, Meta, Yale, the Santa Fe Institute, and the London School of Economics. He has advised business executives as well as Cabinet Members, Parliamentarians, and administrators in six countries about matters ranging from decision making to AI.

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Christian studied computer science and philosophy at Brown University, poetry and nonfiction at the University of Washington, and psychology and computational neuroscience at the University of Oxford. He lives in San Francisco and the UK. ...more

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Brian Christian鈥檚 books

Average rating: 4.13 · 42,784 ratings · 4,052 reviews · 7 distinct works 鈥� Similar authors

	Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian (欧宝娱乐 Author), Tom Griffiths (欧宝娱乐 Author) 4.13 avg rating — 33,638 ratings — published 2016 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values 4.36 avg rating — 4,281 ratings — published 2020 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive 3.94 avg rating — 4,634 ratings — published 2011 — 29 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society鈥旳 Profound Examination of AI, Cybernetics, and the Human-Machine Relationship, Anticipating the Dilemmas of Modern Technology and Neuroscience by Norbert Wiener, Brian Christian (欧宝娱乐 Author) (introduction) 4.02 avg rating — 872 ratings — published 1949 — 55 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Brown Reader: 50 Writers Remember College Hill by Judy Sternlight (欧宝娱乐 Author) (Editor), Judy Sternlight (欧宝娱乐 Author) (Editor), Donald Antrim 3.85 avg rating — 144 ratings — published 2014 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Algorithms at Work by Brian Christian (欧宝娱乐 Author), Tom Griffiths (欧宝娱乐 Author) 4.30 avg rating — 66 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive 3.33 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Brian Christian (?)

“Seemingly innocuous language like 'Oh, I'm flexible' or 'What do you want to do tonight?' has a dark computational underbelly that should make you think twice. It has the veneer of kindness about it, but it does two deeply alarming things. First, it passes the cognitive buck: 'Here's a problem, you handle it.' Second, by not stating your preferences, it invites the others to simulate or imagine them. And as we have seen, the simulation of the minds of others is one of the biggest computational challenges a mind (or machine) can ever face.”
― Brian Christian, Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

tags: computational-kindness, computer-science, ethics, tech

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“Don鈥檛 always consider all your options. Don鈥檛 necessarily go for the outcome that seems best every time. Make a mess on occasion. Travel light. Let things wait. Trust your instincts and don鈥檛 think too long. Relax. Toss a coin. Forgive, but don鈥檛 forget. To thine own self be true.”
― Brian Christian, Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

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“Even the best strategy sometimes yields bad results鈥攚hich is why computer scientists take care to distinguish between 鈥減rocess鈥� and 鈥渙utcome.鈥� If you followed the best possible process, then you鈥檝e done all you can, and you shouldn鈥檛 blame yourself if things didn鈥檛 go your way.”
― Brian Christian, Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

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