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Atlas of AI

Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence

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Atlas of AI

By: Kate Crawford
Narrated by: Larissa Gallagher
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About this listen

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

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. This book 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.

©2021 Kate Crawford (P)2021 Tantor Computer Science Machine Theory & Artificial Intelligence Technology Artificial Intelligence

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All stars
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The author does an amazing job by piecing together facts and stories that surround the AI and tend ro be written off as trivia, but when connected paint a picture that makes you wonder

The title says it all

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I learnt a lot but would have been good to acknowledge the need that AI is trying to address and a positive way forward to get there.

great points but one sided

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One of the best books I have listened to in a while. Although very critical of AI, I think it is a refreshing perspective and much needed critique in the age of ‘AI will solve everything.

One of the best books I have listened to.

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A highly intelligent and thought provoking account of the true cost of AI technology

Important and disturbing

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I feel I have a really good grasp of how AI is shaping our planet and people after this. It was easy to listen to and digest, and I imagine that’s no easy accomplishment given the research it’s built on. What was surprising to me was how AI isn’t very different from the automation systems of the early Industrial Revolution—a massive up-scaling, for sure, but not a paradigm shift. And so the promises of beneficial AI ring hollow when you see how it’s actually used.

For example, the claim that AI could transform medicine through early diagnosis, vs the reality of it being used to reduce doctor hours, and the background of decreasing access to vital surgeries. Or how you can’t get a trained therapist in your area now, but you can have a dubiously effective AI chat bot app. Private health “care” corporations get to pay for less therapists, and instead collect rent (app subscriptions) from the needy whose needs aren’t ever resolved.

There really aren’t two sides to this. This book looks underneath the shiny lid of AI, decorated with apparently transformative wonders, to reveal the stew is over a hundred years old and festering.

Urgent, deep, accessible

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I hope there are more books like this that look at the infrastructure of AI. We are presented with an idyllic dream that AI will be labour-saving. This book shows from its outset that that is an illusion.

Also taking a deep dive into some foundational (pseudo-)scientific pursuits that have gone into the development of AI, and a materialistic look at why we need to decolonise data.

A step beyond

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