AI Snake Oil

What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference

By: Arvind Narayanan, Sayash Kapoor

Narrated by: Landon Woodson

This audiobook narrated by Landon Woodson reveals what you need to know about AI—and how to defend yourself against bogus AI claims and products

Comes with a bonus track featuring an illuminating discussion by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor

Confused about AI and worried about what it means for your future and the future of the world? You’re not alone. AI is everywhere—and few things are surrounded by so much hype, misinformation, and misunderstanding. In AI Snake Oil, computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor cut through the confusion to give you an essential understanding of how AI works, why it often doesn’t, where it might be useful or harmful, and when you should suspect that companies are using AI hype to sell AI snake oil—products that don’t work, and probably never will.

While acknowledging the potential of some AI, such as ChatGPT, AI Snake Oil uncovers rampant misleading claims about the capabilities of AI and describes the serious harms AI is already causing in how it’s being built, marketed, and used in areas such as education, medicine, hiring, banking, insurance, and criminal justice. The book explains the crucial differences between types of AI, why organizations are falling for AI snake oil, why AI can’t fix social media, why AI isn’t an existential risk, and why we should be far more worried about what people will do with AI than about anything AI will do on its own. The book also warns of the dangers of a world where AI continues to be controlled by largely unaccountable big tech companies.

By revealing AI’s limits and real risks, AI Snake Oil will help you make better decisions about whether and how to use AI at work and home.

©2024 Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor (P)2024 Princeton University Press

Emphasis on AI limitations.

Missed out on philosophy of Mind and how it plays into many of AI determinism notions being pushed by Ray Kurzweil et al.

Fantastic book!

I loved this book. It should be required reading in all AI / ML courses. Irrational exuberance about AI will pass, like it has passed about stem cells, nanotechnologies, etc. And like before, we need to keep cool about real possibilities of AI and snake oil of AI.

The unraveling of it all

I really enjoyed how they separated the different kinds of AI and what they are capable of, especially the real examples, of which some were horrific. I learned SO much about generative and predictive AI and the nuances. I hope they write more books on the subject and I will definitely sign up for their blog.

Timely, in-depth and accessible

Authors provide a comprehensive overview of AI and why it’s so problematic in 2024.
It dispels myths and explains why there’s so much misinformation about AI. I recommend!

Timely analysis

As the world is getting caught up in the AI hype, this book provides a balanced analysis of what AI can and cannot do.

Much needed book to break through the noise

I loved this book because it gives us the tools to cut through the hype and have practical, evidence based discussions on various AI technologies. The authors walk a good line between curiosity and skepticism. Their considerations for the societal impact of technology makes this an important read for those interested in tech ethics and accountability. The audiobook has a nice addendum on AI generated voices. Great narrative with scientific foundations

Basic level information nothing new here

I was expecting much from this, but this is essentially a summary of what has happened in this field which is open and readily available in the field.