Product Description
The AI Con
Authors: Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna
Format: Paperback
How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want
'The blizzard of excitement, misinformation and pure hype around AI has driven many of us to want an honest guide. If, like me, you're one of those many, you need to read this book' — Brian Eno
Is AI going to take over the world? Have scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to replace all our jobs? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything?
The answers to these questions, as the expert authors of The AI Con make clear, are 'no', 'they wish', 'LOL', and 'definitely not'. In fact, these fears are all symptoms of the hype being used by tech corporations to justify data theft, motivate surveillance capitalism, and devalue human creativity.
Packed with real-world examples, pithy arguments and expert insights, The AI Con arms you to spot AI hype in all its guises, expose the exploitation and power-grabs it aims to hide, and push back against it at work and in your daily life.
'A book to inoculate your mind against Big Tech's AI utopian hype' — Yanis Varoufakis
'Hanna and Bender provide the clearest picture yet of what AI is, what it is not, and why none of us need to accept it' — Timnit Gebru
'A powerful antidote. The authors show that these technologies will serve to deepen existing inequalities, and further 'enshittify' life and work for the vast majority of people' — Grace Blakeley
'Truly eye-opening. An indispensable "field manual" for those who want to fight for a more humane economy and a better society' — Ha-Joon Chang
'Fascinating and thought-provoking' — Johann Hari
'A must-read' — Aleks Krotoski
About the Author
Dr Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington. Her work, including the touchstone ‘Stochastic Parrots’ paper, brings a linguistic perspective to how large language models work and why the illusion they produce is so compelling. In 2023 she was included in the inaugural TIME100 AI list of most influential people in AI.
Dr Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) and a former senior research scientist on Google's Ethical AI team. She is an outspoken critic of the tech industry and a proponent of community-based uses of technology.
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