The Ai Con (how To Fight Big Tech’s Hype And Create The Future We Want)

By (author) Bender Emily M.; By (author) Hanna, Alex
Description:

A smart, incisive take-down of so-called ‘artificial intelligence’, exposing the real harm these technologies do to our jobs, health, society and environment, who stands to gain from them, and how to fight back.

‘You need to read this book’ BRIAN ENO

‘Written with absolute authority and incredible wit and verve’ KAREN HAO

Have tech companies created artificial minds? Are they going to replace all our jobs? Will they take over the world?

The answers to these questions, as the expert authors of The AI Con make clear, are ‘no’, ‘they wish’ and ‘LOL, definitely not’. In fact, these fears are all symptoms of the hype being used to justify data theft, motivate surveillance capitalism and devalue human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines.

Packed with real-world examples of the injustices and harms already being done in the name of ‘AI’, The AI Con arms you to spot the hype in all its guises, expose the exploitation it aims to hide and push back against it at work and in your daily life.

‘A must-read...provide[s] the clearest picture yet of what AI is, what it is not, and why none of us need to accept it being shoved down our throats’ TIMNIT GEBRU

‘A powerful antidote to the hype’ GRACE BLAKELEY

‘Truly eye-opening...indispensable’ HA-JOON CHANG

‘A book to inoculate your mind’ YANIS VAROUFAKIS

‘Refreshing...persuasive’ GUARDIAN

Review quote:
The blizzard of excitement, misinformation and pure hype around AI has driven many of us to want an honest guide to both its promises and its limitations as well as its bizarre history. If, like me, you’re one of those many, you need to read this book. It’s clear, objective and comprehensible. It’s essential reading
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A powerful antidote to the AI hype that dominates tech writing today. The authors show that the development of modern labour saving technologies is not neutral. Instead, these technologies will serve to deepen existing inequalities, and further ''enshittify'' life and work for the vast majority of people
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A must-read. Drs. Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender cut through the dizzying hype to provide the clearest picture yet of what AI is, what it is not, and why none of us need to accept it being shoved down our throats
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A book to inoculate your mind against Big Tech''s AI utopian hype and the resulting dystopian dread
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Artificial intelligence is going to reshape our economy and society. And we''d all better get used to it, right? Wrong, say the authors of this incredible book. This is a truly eye-opening book that will be an indispensable ''field manual'' for those who want to fight for a more humane economy and a better society
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The AI Con takes the thunder out of the dark cloud in our technological future. I am so grateful for the reality check, in Emily’s and Alex’s inimitable style. A must-read for those who don’t want to believe the hype
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A fascinating and thought-provoking analysis of one of the most charged debates in the world
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Bender and Hanna write with absolute authority and incredible wit and verve. Come for the piercing observations; leave with the tools to slice your way through the absurdist narratives that prop up the AI industry and to hold it accountable
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A powerful and timely deep dive into what the AI hype cycle is REALLY about, why it''s bound to crash, and what we can all do to protect ourselves from it. An absolute must-read!
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With irreverence and razor-shar