New UGP publication: Ultra

The book ULTRA: Dystopian Nightmares and Utopian Dreams of Artificial Intelligence is now available online and open access at University of Groningen Press (UGP).

The book is written by R.M. Gonzales Martinez.
He is a researcher at Oxford University and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Groningen. His work combines machine learning and deep learning with satellite imagery and survey data to tackle global challenges.

About the book

In ULTRA, R.M. Gonzales Martinez invites you into a mind-bending journey through dystopian nightmares and utopian dreams of artificial intelligence. Drawing on science, philosophy, and speculative fiction, this provocative work explores the rise of Artificial Ultra Intelligence (AUI): a cognitive force beyond human comprehension.

Structured like a modern Divine Comedy, the book begins in the digital infernos of machine dominance and war, passes through haunting visions of indifferent AI, and emerges into possible paradises of posthuman potential. With references ranging from Descartes and Nietzsche to The Matrix and thought experiments like “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream,” ULTRA challenges readers to rethink what intelligence means and what it could become.

Will AI save us, enslave us, or simply ignore us? Can human values survive the singularity? ULTRA doesn’t offer answers - it gives provocations.

Accessible, nonlinear, and laced with dark imagination and rigorous speculation, ULTRA is essential reading for anyone intrigued or terrified by what lies beyond the algorithmic event horizon.