This book takes the approach that AI is simply a mediocore tool that relies on theft and that billionaires sunk all of their money into, and now they have to shove it down our throats for it to be profitable for them, while it helps kill the planet at an alarming rate.

I tend to be a doomer, but this book is a practical, logical look at AI hype, all this focus and attention on AI in the age of surveilance capitalism. It breaks down how to spot it and deconstructs it in a way that will help us all be more mindful consumers, combat misinformation, and as a citizen holding policymakers accountable.

We may not be able to fight the lack of regulation it has for the next decade, but we can continue to use critical thinking skills until they breed it out of us.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it if you’re curious about AI, more so if you’re skeptical like me and a doomer. It’s not as bad as I think (yet), but it’s not all that great, either.

One of my favorite tech creators posted <a href="https://youtu.be/B9P5fSrT104?si=JzU9aK7Hff4ltk6B">this video</a> yesterday and while she and the authors come to different conclusions, I think they're sharing several of the same foundations.

Bender and Hanna start from the titular proposition that AI is a con, and we're all being bamboozled into bankrolling tech that both can't do what it says and probably wouldn't be celebration worthy even if it could. It probably helps their case that I agree with a lot of their premises, but they also explicate clearly why it's harmful to allow cycles of venture capital to influence our view of what the future ought to be. The amount of AI slop already impacting our ability to distinguish reality from dis/misinformation is increasing at a staggering rate, as Alberta demonstrates in the video linked above. Many of the more useful applications of "AI," like translation of text for personal purposes or leveling of text for distribution in a classroom could still be accomplished without LLMs and the pushing of both applications into spaces where they don't apply, like the law, is as troubling as Bender & Hanna recount.

I'm not sure that we can put this genie back in the bottle, but we do need to make a concerted effort to question the motives of those who will profit off of our use of any tech, but especially this one.

Written by a linguist and a sociologist, this book contrasts what so-called "artificial intelligence" or AI is and the hype surrounding it. In the process, they provide a litany of much-needed criticisms of the technology, little heard in the mainstream as developers and tech try to cram it into everything. An important book that needs to be read by the majority of people. Highly recommended.

This book was fanatastic, and showed a balanced approach to the current AI phenomenon, while showing that there are more pitfalls than pros in generative AI. A must read.