Atlas Of Ai: Power, Politics, And The Planetary Costs Of Artificial Intelligence

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 science, and technology, scholar Kate Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the energy and minerals needed to build and sustain its infrastructure, to the exploited workers behind “automated” services, to the data AI collects from us. This book reveals how this planetary network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance and increased inequality.
 
Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a material and political perspective on what it takes to make artificial intelligence and where it goes wrong. While technical systems present a veneer of objectivity, they are always systems of power. This is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world.