Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence

Kate's book makes us understand how dangerous the AI Decision making platforms can be. This is a critical Red Flag for every company, Society and Government to remember and adhere to.Sadly she hasn't touched on the benefits which are also immense. The good work done by Palantir on various social projects including UN Sub-Saharan food distribution which brought UN the Nobel Peace Prize has been omitted. This casts a doubt on the integrity of the writer. Is she so concerned with pushing one particular agenda that she will not look sideways to other aspects that are good ?An important book but very One Dimensional.

Interesting book but contains lot of blanket statements and conjecture that is assumed to be true - not very convincing. Clearly a very left-wing author, and she pushes her views (AI exists solely to perpetuate power structures, etc.) a little too much here, rather than laying out a reasoned, evidenced argument.

Admittedly I'm only 120 pages in (and won't finish), but the author has already laid pretty clear pattern I think makes this worse than a bad book, it potentially makes it a dangerous book. The pattern I'm talking about is the author taking some topic with the absolute loosest and most convoluted relationship to AI, and essentially using that as a straw-man proxy of actual AI, and then tearing it down in a way that lets them tell a story of corporate greed, the wealthy exerting power over the poor, men exerting power of women, destruction of the environment, etc. etc.A great example of this from the book is Lithium mining -> because lithium is used to make batteries -> batteries are used in phones -> and phones run software -> sometimes that software is an AI program like Siri. Therefore, according to the author, AI = lithium mining. Lithium mining is of course unhealthy for the local environment as well as the people actually working in the mine. Therefore, rich AI tech companies are destroying the environment and killing people for huge profits... right...The thing is, with enough imagination and a gullible enough reader, you can tell this same story through the lens of almost anything. Lets take kitchen utensils as an example: The big greedy steak knife CEOs would lead you to believe they make this product as a benign tool for food preparation. Did you know that in 19XX a serial killer used a steak knife to murder a bunch of people? Moreover, statistically speaking serial killers are usually straight white men and their victims are women and minorities. The leading kitchen goods company made millions last year while being an accomplice to racial and gender motivated mass murder. You'd be surprised to learn that the company did not go through any ethics review committees to learn about the risks that their products posed to the general population as tools of murder and white supremacy. All so their CEO's (also straight white men) could fly around in private jets enjoying their privilege living in a society where they dominate others.While this is a completely ridiculous example, it's logically similar and actually only a little more over the top than many of the arguments the author actually makes in this book.It's pretty clear the author is starting from some highly left-wing political narrative and trying to warp the reality of AI (and the definition of AI) as "evidence" to support their political narrative. This is not journalism, it is propaganda. Now, if this were a free e-book or a bizarrely long blog post, I wouldn't be writing this review, because it's expected that "free information" is in fact often going to have a strong propaganda element. I think that's fair, if you're not the customer then you're going to be the product. That said, I paid money for this book, so I resent being treated like the product. That's why I gave this book one star. Honestly, it's really lowered my opinion of the Yale University Press.

Comprehensive, authoritative and very lucidly written this book is essential reading for anyone who is interested in understanding the modern world and the way current technological trends are shaping it. This is no waffly polemic or mere technical manual, but a highly readable, thorough and thoughtful review of the way that the current data industry and its ethos is shaping the interactions of humans and the productive systems that sustain us. Comprehensively annotated with an extensive blibiography and index.

Gli impatti sociali dell'Intelligenza Artificiale sono oggetto, orai, di numerosi studi. Credo che Crawford abbia fatto un lavoro che si pone un paio di gradini al di sopra degli altri. Il merito principale è quello di non essersi focalizzata su un singolo aspetto, ma di aver affrontato un ampio spettro di questioni, dalle materie prime (le miniere di terre rare, i consumi energetici) alle questioni militari (le uccisioni mirate compiute dai droni). Non tutti i capitoli sono allo stesso livello di completezza e profondità, ma il risultato complessivo è impressionante. Se dovessi scegliere un capitolo (ma perché poi?) opterei per quello sull'affective computing, quella branca dell'AI che si occupa dell'interazione "emozionale": dai robot-infermieri all'individuazione di presunti terroristi sulla base dell'espressione del viso. Crawford è una delle principali ricercatrici all'AI Now Institute, e con questo lavoro ha portato a sintesi anche il lavoro svolto in questi anni presso quell'istituzione. Eccellente. Buona lettura.PS Il fatto che abbia acquistato, letto e recensito questo libro attraverso i vari servizi di Amazon non fa che rendere ancora più evidente la difficoltà che abbiamo tutti di comportarci in modo sensato.

A few typos, but overall well written with an extraordinary depth of research. Includes footnotes, huge bibliography and index.I recommend this to anyone thinking about AI, investing in AI, or developing AI "solutions". Spoiler alert, you may be creating new problems faster than fixing old ones. This not just about unethical software companies - the author rips into the entire environmentally destructive supply chain that enables AI to exist.