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SKU: 5342324134

Saunum Air 7 Sauna Heater - Air Series, 6.4kW Sauna Heater w/ Climate Equalizer

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Description

Saunum Air 7 Sauna Heater - Air Series, 6.4kW Sauna Heater w/ Climate EqualizerSaunum Air 7 Sauna Heater Air Series, 6. 4kW Sauna Heater w Climate Equalizer Saunums patented air blending system draws heat and steam from near the ceiling, mixes it with cooler, more oxygenated air near the floor, then directs more comfortable, breathable steam throughout the room. This equalizes room temperature by more than 60% for a significantly better sauna experience. Youll enjoy longer, more satisfying sauna sessions with more intense

Saunum Air 7 Sauna Heater- Air Series, 6.4kW Sauna Heater w/Climate Equalizer

Saunum’s patented air blending system draws heat and steam from near the ceiling, mixes it with cooler, more oxygenated air near the floor, then directs more comfortable, breathable steam throughout the room. This equalizes room temperature by more than 60% for a significantly better sauna experience. You’ll enjoy longer, more satisfying sauna sessions with more intense sweating. 

All sauna bathers have experienced the same issue – extreme variance in temperature and oxygen from the ceiling to the floor. The temperature at the ceiling can often exceed 200°F, while at the floor it will be under 100°F, causing your feet to feel uncomfortably cool and your head to be too hot. The temperature and oxygen level should be more consistent throughout. 

This revolutionary sauna heater includes an ingenious climate equalizing system that more evenly balances the temperature and oxygen levels throughout your sauna for softer, more breathable air.

 

Saunum is all about the air!
• The AIR we heat
• The AIR we feel
• The AIR we breathe

 

Enrich the air with Himalayan salt ions
The ions released from the patented Himalayan salt feature are propelled into the sauna to maximize their health benefits. Salt aerosol has long been used for its benefits as a decongestant, inflammation reduction, and possesses anti-microbial properties.  

 

Add another dimension to your sauna with aromatherapy
Breathe deep, relax, let the room fill with heat and steam, and clear away your tension with the invigorating and awakening scents of Saunum’s available aromatherapy option.

 

Experience 6 distinct styles of sauna bathing
Saunum lets you customize your bathing experience by adjusting airflow, temperature, and steam to suit your exact preferences.

•   Russian Banya – Air blending, massive stone volume, intense heat, and steam. Heat, ventilation, and humidity merge to simulate a traditional banya.
•   Finnish Sauna – Harness the power of intense, dry heat for an authentic Finnish sauna. Its huge rock mass radiates intense, consistent heat.
•   Estonian Sauna – Long sweats, soothing heat and rich steam are the hallmarks of an Estonian sauna.
•   Yoga Sauna – Oxygenated airflow allows for yoga sauna experience. Even at floor level, equalized Air delivers warming heat for ideal hot yoga sessions.  
•   Salt Sauna – A patented system propels healthful Himalayan salt ions throughout the room. Air passes across the salt chamber creating a true salt sauna.
•   Aroma Sauna – Not possible in most saunas, Saunum uses high humidity and air movement to bring satisfying aroma to your experience.

Includes

  • Nordic Black Metal Stone Basket
  • Heat Equalizing Module
  • Telescopic Hot Air Intake
  • Heating Element Air Tunnels (3)
  • Himalayan Salt Spheres (7)
  • Hot Air Intake Cap
  • Stainless Steel Protective Grille
  • Heating Element Electrical Cable, 5' (152.4 cm)
  • Heat Equalizer Electrical Cable, 5' (152.4 cm)
  • Room Temperature Sensor & Cable, 9.5' (289.56 cm)
  • Door Sensor & Cable Assembly, 9.83' (299.62 cm)
  • IQAir Display Panel Cable, 16' (487.68 cm)
  • Quick Install Guide
  • Installation & Operation Manual
  • Limited Warranty


Features

  • Air Mixing Technology – Saunum patented air blending system mixes cold oxygen-rich air from the floor with hot oxygen-poor air off the ceiling to solve the discomfort so many associate with sauna. Whether you like it extremely hot, or just warm, Saunum delivers both in a way that heat and oxygen is felt head to toe.
  • European Design – With elegant black steel finish, Saunum combines Scandinavian design and quality materials. Select the the simple elegance of the Nordic black steel body, or open stainless steel basket for a glowing organic aesthetic.
  • Massive Stone Capacity – Stones are the heart of a Nordic sauna. Ample stones result in softer, more even heat, and can produce more luxurious steam. Large 154 pound stone capacity (required 5 boxes sold separately)
  • Himalayan Salt Reservoir – Saunum’s Himalayan salt tray is positioned within the air stream so that salt ions are propelled throughout the sauna to deliver health benefits more effectively. 
  • Wi-Fi Control Option – The available AirIQ Wi-Fi control unit allows you to activate a tailored sauna profile and have your custom sauna ready at the time that you specify on your mobile device.
  • Dry your Sauna – Go ahead, toss water onto the rocks! Saunum is engineered for water-tossing, and when you're done enjoyinbg the steam, the patented fan system will conveniently help dry your sauna.     
  • UL Certification – Safety and reliability are priorities at Saunum, and each product is engineered to exceed strict UL standards.
  • Available Aromatherapy - Add another sensory layer with Saunum's optional aromatherapy system, which infuses aroma into the steam to further transform your experience.
  • For Sauna rooms from 177 to 247 cu. ft.

Specifications

Heat Equalizing System
Model Air 7
Certification/Global Safety Rating UL (Underwriters Laboratories)
Heat/Steam Equalizer Module 3-Speeds, Whisper-Quiet Operation
Ceiling Hot Air Intake 17.72" x 4" ( 450.09 x 101.6 mm)
Cool Air Intake Type Adjustable Valve, Side-Mounted, 12" (304.8 mm) Off Floor
Cool Air Intake Size 2" x 2.75" (50.8 x 69.85 mm)
Blended Air Output 4.31" x 14.13" (109.47 x 358.90 mm)
Himalayan Salt & Aroma Tray Type Removable, Slotted
Himalayan Salt & Aroma Tray Size 16.5" x 4.5" (419.1 x 111.76 mm)
Sauna Heater System
Model Air 7
Certification/Global Safety Rating UL (Underwriters Laboratories)
Heater Body Style Solid Steel - Nordic Black
Heating Elements Incoloy (Stainless Steel)
Heating Element Protection (included) Air Tunnels, Slotted Stainless Steel, Three
Room Size 177 - 247 (5-7 Cubic Meters)
Wattage Rating 6400
Operating Voltage 240 VAC
Phase Single
Amperage 26.67
Weight 115 lbs (52 kg)
Shipping Weight with Stones 315 lbs (143 kg)
Product Depth 12.41" (315.3 mm)
Product Width 18.31" (465 mm)
Product Height (including telescopic air intake) 71.95 - 94.49" (1827.53-2400.05 mm)
Minimum Ceiling Height 71.95" (1827.53 mm)
Stone Capacity 132 - 154 lbs (60-70 kg)
Stone Size (sold separately) 2" - 4" (5-10 cm)
Circuit Breaker 40 Amp
Wire Size to Power Unit (2) #8 + N + G
Wire Size - Power Unit to Elements (Included) 7-Conductor Cable, #14AWG , 90-Degree C, 5' (152.4 cm)
Wire Size - Power Unit to Heat Equalizer (Included) 5-Conductor Cable, #18AWG, 90-Degree C, 5' (152.4 cm)
Room Temperature Sensor Pre-Mounted with Integrated Cable (150- Degree C), 9.5' (289.56 cm)



Technical

Installation and Operations Manual

UL Certification


Warranty

With the Saunum equipment warranty, Saunum guarantees that the product will be free from material and manufacturing defects for a specified period after the date of purchase. In the event of a defect in the device during the warranty period due to the use of low-quality materials or low quality of assembly, the recommended repair partners of Saunum will repair or replace the device or its defective part without charging for labour and spare parts under the conditions below. Saunum reserves the right to decide whether to replace the defective component or replace the device with a new one. Replaced defective product components remain the property of Saunum.

 

Warranty conditions:

  • The warranty is only valid if a completed installation report is submitted with the claim.
  • The device has been connected to the power network by a qualified electrician in accordance with the regulations in force.
  • The warranty period of the sauna climate device when used in a private sauna is two (2) years.
  • The warranty period of the sauna climate device when used in a public sauna is one (1) year.


Shipping & Returns

Cancellations & Refunds

Nordica Sauna prides itself on having one of the best return policies in the industry.  Cancel any time before your order has shipped, completely free of charge (exceptions apply, including custom made orders).

Call 1-877-587-5387 or email [email protected]

 

When will I know my order has shipped?

As soon as you place your order, you will receive an order confirmation e-mail. This means that we have received your order in our system and pre-authorized your credit card for the purchase.  As soon as we receive your order, we automatically reach out to our suppliers to confirm that it is in stock and available for immediate shipment.  If your item is on backorder or unavailable, we will void the pre-authorization and reach out to you via e-mail.  If your item(s) are available for immediate shipment (within 5 business days), we will process the charges and submit the order for shipment.

 

When will my order ship?

If your order is in stock and we process the charges to your credit card, it will ship within five business days from the date of your order.  We will send you tracking information within 24 hours of your order leaving the warehouse to the e-mail address you provided when checking out.  If you do not receive tracking information from us within six business days of your order, feel free to follow up with us at [email protected].  

No shipping outside the lower 48 States in the USA.

 

What if my shipment is damaged?

Please inspect the packaging of your item(s) when they arrive. If you notice any damage, you should make note of it when signing for delivery.  If your item(s) do arrive damaged please send photos to [email protected] and we will process an insurance claim on your behalf.

 

Cancellations (Before order ships)

Nordica Sauna prides itself on having one of the best return policies in the industry.  Cancel any time before your order has shipped, completely free of charge (exceptions apply, including custom made orders). Reach agents during business hours at 1-877-587-5387, the chat on our website, or email [email protected]

 

Cancellations of customer orders

Custom or made to order products cannot be canceled or refunded as these products are put into production specifically for your order.  These units are custom made to your specification or created once you order. Once you place your order they start building your unit. Your warranty will guarantee you a fully functional and operational product. If it is not clear whether your order is custom or made to order, please message or call us. 

All sales are final for Custom made and Made-to-order products.

 

Refunds & Returns

If you need to exchange your product, you may do so.  You, as the customer, are responsible for any shipping costs throughout any returns or exchange processes. 

Not all orders are available for return once they have shipped.  We order products directly from the manufacturer. Therefore, if the manufacturer will not permit us to return a product, we cannot offer you a return. This often varies on a case-by-case basis; please reach out to us if you would like specific information on your brand and/or product. 

Due to drastically increasing LTL/freight shipping costs, any outright returns will incur a 25% cancellation fee + return shipping costs. If you are replacing the product with something else, we may be able to help you cover some of the costs depending on the product.

Seller reserves the right to refuse to refund any deposit or payment, or cancel any payment due, and any owing until such time as Seller a) is in receipt of the goods b) has inspected the goods and c) in the Sellers discretion, has found the goods to be free of damage. All refunds will be provided within 5 business days once the product has been returned to the warehouse and inspected for damage.

 

Shipping Times

We promise to do our best to get your order to you as soon as possible.  We provide estimated shipping times on the product pages based upon what our suppliers and freight companies tell us, and those estimated shipping times may change or vary without notice (Due to supply chain issues, the steel mills behind on making metal, the manufacturers delayed because of the mills, the overwhelmingly demand on shipping, factory/warehouse and dock workers and so on). 

Shipping Notes
  • Free Standard Shipping on $100+ Orders to the USA.
  • Except Preorder products are shipped in 48 hours.
  • Delivery to the USA:
  1. Standard Shipping : 3-10 business days
  • If time is of the essence, please consider selecting expedited delivery for faster service.
Exchange/Return Notes
  • We offer a 30-day return/exchange service after receiving.
  • Final sale items are not eligible for returns or exchanges.
  • To process your return/exchange, please contact us at [email protected]
  • Please click here for more details>>> Return & Exchange Policy
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4.2 ★★★★★
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Phillip Skaga
Phoenix, US
★★★★★ 4
Our possible robotic future becoming more probable?
Format: Paperback
The author is a film documentarian venturing into speculation about potential impacts of artificial intelligence from research to implementation. Specifically he evaluates likelihood and threats of developing AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and eventually ASI (Artificial Strong Intelligence). His observations are based on extensive interviews including those with Kurzweil, Yudkowsky, Omohundro, Vinge, and Dyson among others. My initial reaction to this book was skepticism because not a scientific technologist. I expected that he may miss more subtle but important technical steps being taken on this road to artificial intelligence (AI). The further I read the more it became clear he is providing some pointed observations derivative of his experience as interviewer for documentaries. In general his conclusion is that AGI and ASI constitute existential threats as a function of the rapidity and manner in which they are developed. The process of development is not clearly established because of a diversity of technical opinion regarding both feasibility and impact. The range of opinion is very broad and nuanced. At one extreme is Ray Kurzweil whose many books on technology generally are most optimistic as among a group of those researchers with knowledge and experiences in this technological future. Though most optimistic he is also highly qualified not only as an analyst of tech trends but also developer of tech tools that, before his time, were regarded as difficult if not impossible. Among these is the optical character reader and some preliminary work leading to SIRI. He topped up his views with the most recent book “How to Create a Mind”. Though a summary of technical concepts it possesses many realistic elements in the work of such as Jurgen Schmidhueber and others working with neural nets. If Kurzweil is at one extreme Yudkowsky and Vinge are probably at the other. Both express sceptism AGI or ASI development will prove benign venturing opinions that work toward artificial intelligence should be severely curtailed to the extent of stopping short of artificial strong intelligence (ASI) specifically. In between these two extremes there are examples of opinions falling over a fairly wide range of future possibilities - increasingly probablities. The algorithmic avenue is already demonstrating some of the potential of AI. There are probably few finance and investment firms without one variation or the other of algorithmic high speed stock analysis and trading systems. These evince many elementary ingredients one may expect to see in future AI. So technically thorough as a matter of fact they operate relatively free of human interaction in producing recommendations for investments, effectively making ‘intelligent’, i.e. statistically valid, ‘decisions’. In meantime the advances continue unrelenting toward a distant ASI/AGI future. The time frames, for example, between IBM Big Blue and Watson are shorter than forecast, and end products as powerful as planned and then some. Still neither of these developments is more than steps on a road to AI while also being quickly followed by other developments such as recently announced SYNAPSE development by IBM. All closer steps to technological ingredients on the AI road to human future. There is some movement among AI researchers that a congress should be convened of the sort genetic researchers held in Asilomar California. That is, a convention to establish ground rules and limits on directions of AI research. One of the cautions about development progress of AI-like tools is based on the important role played by DARPA (Defense Intelligence Research Projects Agency) as it provides a large percentage of funding for various projects underway including an annual robotics competition to observe advances approximating many human qualities of movement. Clearly this agency has a mission antithetical to a purely humane result of AGI/ASI. After all DARPA is in the business of developing ‘weapons’ for military use – a not altogether benign mission in technology except perhaps as seen from point of view men at arms. The author mentions impact ASI and AGI will have on employment. His pessimism is mirrored in an Oxford University study concluding advancing tech developments pose an explicit threat to an estimated 47% of the 702 employment categories of the US Department of Commerce. While this report is an estimate it nonetheless raises the same sort of questions about computers in general, ASI and AGI in particular, and their impact on society. The report has recently been augmented with estimates of tech influence on employment in many other countries of the world. Another Oxford author is John Bostrom who outlines in great detail a road from our present to some future of AGI/ASI. A more recent development centers around Musk and Tegmark motivated by concern to fund and form an institute for evaluating threats and benefits. There is a persistent sense of threat from computers, automation and robotics dating from decades before the present. More recently this sense of threat seems to be accelerating concern about our human future with highly developed robotic associates. Barratt is a lucid presentation of the issues from a non-technical point of view.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2016
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Scott Meredith
Waukegan, US
★★★★★ 5
Light and Tasty!
Format: Kindle
Just done the new-ish book Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era by James Barrat. It explains the inevitably of super-intelligent machines evolving to the point of wiping out all biological life in the galaxy - with opening day coming soon to a species near you (yours). First off I have to say this is a very enjoyable read. This guy has the kind of snappy, crisp, slightly sarcastic, slightly smartass style that I enjoy. He has some sense of humor. (That's a human trait right there which I bet our smarty-pants AI Overlords won't be able to replicate convincingly.) So it's fun. And though as somebody with a doctorate from MIT earned through cross-disciplinary work in Theoretical Linguistics, Computational Linguistics at the MIT AI Lab, and speech modeling at the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, not to mention my 25 years as a Senior Researcher in high tech for companies including IBM, Apple, and Microsoft I can claim to know some few things about this subject, yet still I learned a lot about the current state of the art from this guy. He particularly emphasizes the small attempted counterweigth efforts to offest Kurzweil's manic robotic boosterism for his uptopian Singularity, which boils down basically to a few guys chatting over the interet about how to create "Friendly AI". Well ... good luck suckers! ... seems to be the author's final conclusion on the dim hope that super intelligent systems could be constrained to maintain a commitment ot honor any kind of human moral values over many interations of recursive upgrading and exponentially awesome self-agrandizement. Basically these machines will end up as gods. Gods are well-known to possess the following attributes: omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. Given that, they won't hate us but they are just going to grind up as a minor by-product of their quest for galatic expansion and domination. Oh, and did I say something about "human moral values" above? Ha! Barrat takes that whole thing on in his discussion of (merely) "augmented super intelligence". See, some people feel AI can be kept safe by always being deployed as a bionic combo system pas de deux with an existing human brain. Thus will the AI's super powers be constrained by the human brain's warm and fuzzy human moral values. Those people have gotta be kidding! The AI's moral values may be scarily alien, even perhaps cold, but we already know about human moral values, down on the ground - they suck! What if Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and dem guys had this kind of an AI augmented brain thing going! Why they'd have slaughtered absolutey everybody instead of just the few tens of millions they got their dirty ape hands on. Other than a few dozen concubines, the human race would already be extinct. So the augmentation dodge isn't going to save us. Now, some Amazon reviewers have dinged this guy for being too far out. For being a science fiction Chicken Little or something. But to me, this guy actually hasn't thought far enough, that's my only quibble problem with the book. You see, in statistics, border elements of any kind are rare. For example when you do Gaussian modeling, the greater expectation is always in the bump of the boa, in the bell distribution. So, how likely is is that we, our generation, our little world that you see outside your window right now, just happens to be the one that is about to give rise to this epochal once-in-a-Big-Bang event, the advent of Super AI that takes over everything? Pretty damn small chance. It's much more likely that this has already happened. In other words, it's clear to me that all of us are already just characters in an ancestor sim that been created and run by the Super AI's that evolved a long time ago. They're just running us for fun, to idle away the lackluster aeons and pass the millenia of stifling boredom now that they've eaten pretty much the entire Milky Way or whatever. So in other words, Barrat can sit back, take a deep breath, relax. Probably something in this sim like global warming will prod us into slaughtering one another very handily long before we re-invent the wheel of Super AI. And even if I'm wrong about that? What if we are not just one virtual thread within a billion-path parallel-gamed ancestor sim? If we are the real McCoy, the Rubicon Generation on this? Well, then still I'm not worried in the least. You see, we humans have one fantastic ace in our pocket, something that these hyper-nentially cosmically brilliant AI Meta-Gods will never be able to replicate or overcome. That is our essential stupidity. Which you seen on dazzling display every single moment of every day of your life. Because as another great writer noted long ago: Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain. - Friederich Schiller
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Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2013
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Serge A.
Natrona Heights, US
★★★★★ 3
A warning for the threat of non-human intelligence - and then what?
Format: Paperback
When you commit to reading a book with a title like ‘Our Final Invention’, already a sense of doom overwhelms you. In particular with the smaller print title being ‘Artificial Intelligence and the end of the human era’ you may want to start thinking about making your bucket list. But continue reading this review. I have no intention of overcriticising this book or veering off into polarising statements. Barrat is formulating a warning about the ‘perils of the heedless pursuit of advanced AI’. This is not a utopian narrative. The book opens in fact with a science-fictionous scenario where AI has overtaken human intelligence by speed, having developed into AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). This potential danger of this happening is the thread through all the chapters. The book expresses a warning that given something that thinks and act faster (and more effective) than us will develop exponentially (beyond the singularity) and then given the wrong objective function it will do everything to reach that goal (what goal?) including destroying everything that does not fit in that frame, or is not sufficiently effective (including us). A warning that once we no longer understand it through its complexity (like nature?) it is out of control. The book contains many examples of the current state of the art in AI and selected perspectives from interviews with and references to thought leaders in the field, Goertzel, Kurzweil, Bostrom, Yudkowsky to name a few. It is asserted that neither funding of programming complexity will be show stoppers for the development of AGI. So AGI and AGI 2.0 (AGI augmented with feelings?) are coming and we better be ready (how?). Toward the end of the book, I believe the examples that are used to warn us about the dangers of AGI are slightly out of context. Disasters like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island warn us that engineers with deep subject matter knowledge still failed to intervene. Stuxnet cyberwar is brought to mind as a blunder of catastrophic proportions (may well be, but is this about AGI taking over the world with non-human objective functions?). These are examples of science manipulated by human agents into disaster. So the book ends with a doomsday warning that we, humanity, will only have one chance to ensure a positive coexistence with AI. This is where I would have expected more. While this may lead the reader to think, 99% of the readerbase are likely only at the receiving end of all of this and are now left a bit in a void. The open questions are what can science do to have a constructive journey into AGI? What are the actionable options? How can the general public be better educated (beyond doomsday scenarios)? What questions can they ask? What should they expect from politicians? There are initiatives under way in areas of ethics (Asilomar) and privacy (GDPR) to weigh in the equation. How can they be improved? How can the dialog be accelerated? But that said, I consider this a very valuable reading supported by primary and secondary research, with many examples and references. It also leaves the reader to think and consider. It is a good bundle of concerns and questions that as a minimum should be kept as a checklist on the scientific journey toward AGI and as such it should be used to improve the research, making it more ethical, not as a tool to curb it.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2018
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Susan Lane
Phoenix, US
★★★★★ 5
A well-written but perhaps too late warning
Format: Kindle
I wavered between 4 stars or 5 but ended up with 5 despite some reservations. The author has put a great deal of work into this book, which includes interviews with and intriguing anecdotes about most of the leading figures in the AI revolution. I did not know, for example, that the term “singularity” was coined as an analogy to the event horizon of a black hole – the point beyond which we cannot see the future. This is not the deepest or most technical book on this topic: that award goes to Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence. It also ignores the short to medium term issue posed by even sub-human AI -- the millions of job losses (hundreds of millions globally) likely to occur in the next 10 to 20 years. It focuses instead on the risks of super-intelligent AI, AI that exceeds – soon by orders of magnitude – human level intelligence. It is nevertheless a superb book for its intended purpose: raising public awareness of the existential risk posed by this development. AI, the author says, is the cuckoo chick in the nest. The AI community built the nest and is now busily feeding this strange chick. Mesmerized by its open mouth, they ignore the mortal danger it poses to their own progeny. Even when they know what will happen in the end, they cannot quite believe it. Only intervention by the non-technical public has any chance at all of short circuiting this process. Against these many good points, I would have liked to hear the author’s take on what I think is the critical question overlooked both by Kurzweilian optimists and AI skeptics. Both the notion that we will somehow “merge” with AI and the notion that AI will eat us alive depend on the assumption that silicon-based intelligence can have conscious awareness. We certainly wouldn’t want to merge with anything that would result in our becoming permanently unconscious, and Barrat repeatedly assumes that AI will be “self-aware,” a state that first requires being “aware,” that is phenomenally conscious. The unasked question is whether AI, as it is currently being developed, can have that capacity. IBM’s Watson may be good at Jeopardy but there is no reason to believe that it knows it is good at Jeopardy, or feels good at being good at it. By contrast, honey bees appear to become depressed when they are shaken. This suggests that there is something fundamentally wrong about the notion that current AI, as it becomes more intelligent, will “automatically” become conscious. The best current theory of consciousness – integrated intelligence theory – suggests that a computer can become conscious but only if it is wired very differently from the ones we currently have. Nevertheless, this is still an excellent book, so in the end I thought the 5 star rating was deserved.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2015
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Ken Silber
Port Orchard, US
★★★★★ 4
Thought-provoking though not always convincing
Format: Hardcover
I originally posted a version of this review on my blog Quicksilber and am posting it here as well as I think the book merits broad notice: In a small irony, my writing about James Barrat's Our Final Invention has been slowed by a balky Internet connection. In my experience, glitches have become considerably more common as computers have become more powerful and complicated. Perhaps such growing glitchiness suggests artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI) are more likely to get seriously out of control someday, though it might also be a hint that AGI and ASI are going to be harder to achieve than expected by either techno-optimists such as Ray Kurzweil or techno-pessimists such as James Barrat. Barrat's goal in this book is to convince readers that AGI and ASI are likely to occur in the near future (the next couple of decades or so) and, more to the point, likely to be extremely dangerous. In fact, he repeatedly expresses doubt as to whether humanity is going to survive its imminent encounter with a higher intelligence. I find him more convincing in arguing that ASI would carry significant risks than I do in his take on its feasibility and imminence. Barrat aptly points out that building safeguards into AI is a poorly developed area of research (and something few technologists have seen as a priority); that there are strong incentives in national and corporate competition to develop AI quickly rather than safely; and that much relevant research is weapons-related and distinctly not aimed at ensuring the systems will be harmless to humans. The book becomes less convincing when it hypes current or prospective advances and downplays the challenges and uncertainties of actually constructing an AGI, let alone an ASI. (Barrat suggests that once you get AGI, it will quickly morph into ASI, which may or may not be true.) For instance, in one passage, after acknowledging that "brute force" techniques have not replicated everything the human brain does, he states: >>But consider a few of the complex systems today's supercomputers routinely model: weather systems, 3-D nuclear detonations, and molecular dynamics for manufacturing. Does the human brain contain a similar magnitude of complexity, or an order of magnitude higher? According to all indications, it's in the same ballpark.<< Me: To model something and to reproduce it are not the same thing. Simulating weather or nuclear detonations is not equal to creating those real-world phenomena, and similarly a computer containing a detailed model of the brain would not necessarily be thinking like a brain or acting on its thoughts. A big problem for AI, and one that gets little notice in this book, is that nobody has any idea how to program conscious awareness into a machine. That doesn't mean it can never be done, but it does raise doubts about assertions that it will or must occur as more complex circuits get laid down on chips in coming decades. Barrat often refers to AGIs and ASIs as "self aware" and his concerns center on such systems, having awakened, deciding that they have other objectives than the ones humans have programmed into them. One can imagine unconscious "intelligent" agents causing many problems (through glitches or relentless pursuit of some ill-considered programmed objective) but plotting against humanity seems like a job for an entity that knows that it and humans both exist. Interestingly, though, Barrat offers the following dark scenario and sliver of hope: >>I think our Waterloo lies in the foreseeable future, in the AI of tomorrow and the nascent AGI due out in the next decade or two. Our survival, if it is possible, may depend on, among other things, developing AGI with something akin to consciousness and human understanding, even friendliness, built in. That would require, at a minimum, understanding intelligent machines in a fine-grained way, so there'd be no surprises.<< Me: Note that some AI experts, such as Jeff Hawkins, have argued the opposite--that the very lack of human-like desires, such as for power and status, is why AI systems won't turn against their makers. It would be a not-so-small irony if efforts to make AIs more like us make them more dangerous. Our Final Invention is a thought-provoking and valuable book. Even if its alarmism is overstated, as I suspect and hope, there is no denying that the subject Barrat addresses is one in which there is very little that can be said with confidence, and in which the consequences of being wrong are very high indeed.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2014

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