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The AI Con by Emily M. Bender (Hardback)
£22.00
Available
Product Ref. (e.g. ISBN, SKU)
9781847928610
Published:
22 May 2025
Format:
Hardback
Number of pages:
240 pages
Dimensions:
240x156x28mm
Weight:
0.500kgs
Author:
A forthcoming Bodley Head publication brought to you by Penguin Random House, publishing in May 2025.
A smart, incisive take-down of the bogus claims being made about 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.
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, even creative ones, like doctors, teachers and care-workers? 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 so they can replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. Meanwhile, across healthcare, education, media, government and law-enforcement, 'AI' products are already being introduced that are unreliable, ineffective, unjust and dangerous.
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.
About the Author: Dr. Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington where she is also the Faculty Director of the Computational Linguistics Master of Science program and affiliate faculty in the School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School. She is a leading voice in criticizing AI hype, and co-author of the touchstone 'Stochastic Parrots' paper that debunks the myth that large language models are or could ever be intelligent, which has been cited over 5,500 times and is taught in AI curricula around the world. She has made over 150 media appearances across the top international news outlets and in 2023 was included in the inaugural TIME100 AI list of most influential people in AI.
| Number of pages | 240 |
|---|
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