Kate Crawford is a leading scholar of the social
implications of AI. She is a research professor at USC Annenberg, a
senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research, and the
inaugural chair of AI and Justice at the École Normale
Supérieure.
“This study argues that [artificial intelligence] is neither
artificial nor particularly intelligent. . . . A fascinating
history of the data on which machine-learning systems are
trained.”—New Yorker
“Crawford argues passionately that while AI is presented as
disembodied, objective and inevitable, it is material, biased and
subject to our own outlooks and ideologies.”—David A. Shaywitz,
Wall Street Journal
“As Kate Crawford’s trenchant Atlas of AI demonstrates again and
again, artificial intelligence does not come to us as a deus ex
machina but, rather, through a number of dehumanizing extractive
practices, of which most of us are unaware.“—Sue Halpern, New York
Review of Books
Named one of the “Five Best Books to Read to Get Smart about AI” by
the Wall Street Journal
“One of the world’s most thoughtful researchers on the impact of AI
delivers a sobering, but essential, read about how AI is
accelerating undemocratic governance and increased
inequality.”—John Thornhill, Financial Times, Best Books of
2021
“Exposes the dark side of AI’s success. . . . Meticulously
researched and superbly written.”—Virginia Dignum, Nature
“A sweeping view of artificial intelligence that frames the
technology as a collection of empires, decisions, and actions that
are together fast eliminating possibilities of sustainable future
on a global scale. . . . A timely and urgent contribution.”—Michael
Spezio, Science
“Reveals the hidden costs of artificial intelligence, from the
consumption of natural resources to the more subtle costs to our
privacy, equality and freedom.—Simon Ings, New Scientist, “Best
Books of the Year”
“A compelling new book.”—Stephanie Wood, Sydney Morning Herald
“Atlas of AI is a seminal work that brings AI within our circle of
care. . . . Crawford’s book is a great contribution to the field,
as efforts are made at various levels, national and international,
in companies and educational institutions, to mitigate the harms of
this technology. Crawford underlines that this can only happen if
we ‘challenge the structures of power that AI currently reinforces
and create the foundations for a different society.’”—Anais
Resseguier, AI and Ethics
“Presents an insightful perspective coupled with in-depth analysis.
. . . Essential reading for those who are interested in the
real-world effects of AI development, along with its political
ramifications. More importantly, Atlas of AI draws attention to
widely ignored aspects of policy debates, namely the human and
planetary costs of AI. This book should be welcomed by AI
enthusiasts, students, scholars and policy-makers seeking to grasp
the fundamentals of the relationship between AI, politics and
society.”—Muhammed Can, International Affairs
“Well-researched, well-written, and enlightening.”—Terry Freedman,
Teach Secondary
“Crawford brings the reader on a global journey to places and
interventions which have historically played, and continue to play,
a key function in developing and maintaining the machinery of
artificial intelligence. With a variety of well-illustrated
descriptions of environmentally hazardous industries, exploitation
of human labour, the origin of deeply biased data sets, and methods
of classification, Crawford assists the reader in seeing through
the myth of AI.”—Lina Olsson, Metascience
“Atlas of AI is the perfect medium to begin to understand AI.
Crawford wisely avoids any form of jargon and her message comes
across clear and loud. The book also contains a wide array of notes
and references which the more experienced readers will find very
useful to go deeper into the several themes that Crawford’s atlas
illustrates, but also to find new directions for future
research.”—Federico Cugurullo, Technoscienza
CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles 2021
Winner of the 2022 Sally Hacker Prize, sponsored by the Society for
the History of Technology (SHOT)
Winner of the 2022 Best Information Science Book of the Year Award,
sponsored by ASIS&T
“A must read. Moving from lithium mines to data extraction, from
labor exploitation to government surveillance, Atlas of AI
eloquently reveals how intelligence is ‘made.’ It displaces anemic
calls for ‘ethics’ with probing investigations into the
environmental degradation, capital accumulation, and labor
conditions that AI make possible.”—Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, SFU’s
Canada 150 Chair in New Media
“It’s a masterpiece, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about
it.”—Karen Hao, senior editor, MIT Tech Review
“In this eloquent and revelatory survey, Crawford limns the dire
stakes of unbridled technological expansion. Methodologically
original and keenly intelligent, Atlas of AI is an indispensable
map of the present that boldly calls readers to chart a more just
and sustainable future.”—Alondra Nelson, president, Social Science
Research Council
“Eloquent, clear and profound—this volume is a classic for our
times. It draws our attention away from the bright shiny objects of
the new colonialism through elucidating the social, material and
political dimensions of Artificial Intelligence.”—Geoffrey C.
Bowker, University of California, Irvine
“By brilliantly tracing the history, mythology, ethics and politics
of artificial intelligence, Atlas of AI reminds us that the stories
we tell about AI are just as vital as the mathematical models that
comprise these systems.”—Ruha Benjamin, author of Race After
Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code
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