The AI Con
How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 3 months for $0.99/mo
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.33
-
Narrated by:
-
Jade Wheeler
Brought to you by Penguin.
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.
Listeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
In The AI Con, Bender and Hanna deliver a hard-hitting, no-nonsense takedown of the so-called 'artificial intelligence revolution'. Far from the sci-fi fantasy of machines thinking for themselves, this book shows how tech giants are using AI as a cover for their real agenda: data exploitation, surveillance and a race to replace human labour with soulless automation. With irreverence and razor-sharp analysis, Bender and Hanna dismantle the hype and arm readers with the tools to see through the corporate doublespeak. This isn’t just about debunking myths — it’s about reclaiming control over the future that’s being sold to us (Ruha Benjamin, author of Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want)
My only criticism would be the political views which come through too often. I can see that I have different more conservative political views, but at the same time agree with the authors on many of the concerns relating to the continued growth of AI. If there is a further update or new version I would just ask that some of the more political leaning views are excluded and a more objective apolitical analysis is provided. For example, I don’t believe climate change is an existential risk, but I do still have concerns that the huge power requirements currently required to power the continued growth of AI is currently not sustainable and will deplete the earths resources and cannot be good.
Nonetheless, for those who have concerns about “AI” and the risk of a growing automated digital cage that we appear to be moving towards, both for themselves, as well as their children and grandchildren, this is a very informative and helpful read, demystifying the “AI” hype that surrounds us and some steps of how to push back, even in just little ways.
Reassuring and enlightening
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.