Background

As of October 1st, 2025, Darren McKee's book Uncontrollable: The Threat of Artificial Superintelligence and the Race to Save the World is the first book I'd recommend on the topic of existential risk from AI to a general reader, ahead of several other books in the genre (which I have added as answers to this question and resolved as No to indicate that they will not win the bounty).

I've offered a $1000 bounty to the author of the next book I read before the end of 2027 that I deem to be a better overview of the topic of AI existential risk than Uncontrollable.

As I read other books in the genre over the next two years, I will add them here and resolve them as Yes or No as appropriate, depending on whether I award them a bounty for being better than Uncontrollable or not.

More than one book may resolve Yes. (Bounty payout amount for winners beyond the first winner is half the payout of the previous winner.)

Please add any books to this question that you believe might (>1%) be good enough to win the bounty. Include the book title and author. (If the title of an author's forthcoming book on AI changes, do not add a new entry if that author is already listed.

While this bounty is meant to help incentivize the creation of new books, older books that have already been published are still eligible to win, so if your favorite book on the topic of AI existential risk is not on the list, please add it!

I will not participate in this market in the interest of encouraging others to participate.

The Bounty

Here's a copy of the bounty I published on September 18th, 2025:

$1000 for writing a book that I deem to be a better overview of the topic of existential risk from AI and what to do about it, for a typical reader at the time of bounty payout, than Uncontrollable or If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.

By default, the bounty expires at the end of 2027. The book does not need to be published by then, but I need to have read it by then and there of course needs to be a plan to publish it so people can read it. If there are multiple authors, the bounty is split between the authors.

For context, prior to the publication of IABIED, Uncontrollable was my number one recommendation for a book in this category ahead of Superintelligence, Human Compatible, The Alignment Problem, and other related books like The Precipice and What We Owe the Future.[1] (It's okay for the book to be not only about AI, but that does make it harder for it to become my new top recommendation in this category.)

In May I forecasted a 75% chance that IABIED would overtake Uncontrollable as my top recommendation, but after listening to the audiobook (my hardcopy hasn't arrived yet) I can say that IABIED was below my median expectation and I lean toward Uncontrollable still being the book I judge to be best in this category. (I'm not confident in this and intend to wait to form a confident judgement until after my hardcopy of IABIED arrives and I'm able to reread it in written form.)

To be clear, I think there is a lot of room for a book to be better than either Uncontrollable or IABIED, or the other books that I've read in this category, and I am hopeful that someone will write one in the next two years.

If there's an existing book I haven't read yet that becomes my new top recommendation before the end of 2027 I'll still award the $1000 bounty if the author claims it, but I expect that if a book wins the bounty it will probably be a book that hasn't been published yet.

This bounty was inspired by Buck's comments[2] that IABIED "was good enough that it's hard for me to imagine someone else writing a much better one" (I disagree) and "Even given all the flaws, I don't know of a resource for laypeople that’s half as good at explaining what AI is, describing superintelligence, and making the basic case for misalignment risk." (He clarified he hasn't read and didn't consider that Uncontrollable might be that resource.) And "After reading [IABIED], it feels like a shocking oversight that no one wrote it earlier." I agree, and furthermore think the world really still needs a better book than either IABIED or Uncontrollable.

Update October 2nd: Multiple books can win this bounty. The bounty for subsequent winners will be half the amount of the previous winner, i.e. the second book to win would receive $500, the third to win would receive $250, etc. Subsequent winners are held to the same standard as previous winners i.e. they do not also need to be better than the previous bounty-winning book(s).

[1] https://www.facebook.com/wjkiely/posts/pfbid02x26Zc5rf3vNfdkNuD8HRN4DDdXJaUNQwiWsuZBj8WXoKvokBQBPZCda7MTAeVxPul

[2] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/P4xeb3jnFAYDdEEXs/i-enjoyed-most-of-iabied