Description

By (author) Crawford Kate

Short /annotation:
The hidden costs of artificial intelligence, from natural resources and labor to privacy and freedom

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The hidden costs of artificial intelligence—from natural resources and labor to privacy, equality, and freedom

“This study argues that [artificial intelligence] is neither artificial nor particularly intelligent. . . . A fascinating history of the data on which machine-learning systems are trained.”—New Yorker

“A valuable corrective to much of the hype surrounding AI and a useful instruction manual for the future.”—John Thornhill,
Financial Times

“It’s a masterpiece, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”—Karen Hao, senior editor,
MIT Tech Review

What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? Drawing on more than a decade of research, award‑winning scholar Kate Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the minerals drawn from the earth to the labor pulled from low-wage information workers to the data taken from every action and expression.

Crawford reveals how this planetary network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance and increased inequity. Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a material and political perspective on what it takes to make AI and how it centralizes power. This is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world.

Review quote:
“This study argues that [artificial intelligence] is neither artificial nor particularly intelligent. . . . A fascinating history of the data on which machine-learning systems are trained.”—New Yorker

“Crawford argues passionately that while AI is presented as disembodied, objective and inevitable, it is material, biased and subject to our own outlooks and ideologies.”—David A. Shaywitz, Wall Street Journal

“As Kate Crawford’s trenchant Atlas of AI demonstrates again and again, artificial intelligence does not come to us as a deus ex machina but, rather, through a number of dehumanizing extractive practices, of which most of us are unaware.“—Sue Halpern, New York Review of Books

Named one of the “Five Best Books to Read to Get Smart about AI” by the Wall Street Journal

“One of the world’s most thoughtful researchers on the impact of AI delivers a sobering, but essential, read about how AI is accelerating undemocratic governance and increased inequality.”—John Thornhill, Financial Times, Best Books of 2021

“Exposes the dark side of AI’s success. . . . Meticulously researched and superbly written.”—Virginia Dignum, Nature

“A sweeping view of artificial intelligence that frames the technology as a collection of empires, decisions, and actions that are together fast eliminating possibilities of sustainable future on a global scale. . . . A timely and urgent contribution.”—Michael Spezio, Science

“Reveals the hidden costs of artificial intelligence, from the consumption of natural resources to the more subtle costs to our privacy, equality and freedom.—Simon Ings, New Scientist, “Best Books of the Year”

“A compelling new book.”—Stephanie Wood, Sydney Morning Herald

“Atlas of AI is a seminal work that brings AI within our circle of care. . . . Crawford’s book is a great contribution to the field, as efforts are made at various levels, national and international, in companies and educational institutions, to mitigate the harms of this technology. Crawford underlines that this can only happen if we ‘challenge the structures of