How to See Like a Machine

Images After AI

by Trevor Paglen

You must sign in to see if this title is available for request. Sign In or Register Now

Pub Date May 19 2026 | Archive Date Not set

Verso Books (US) | Verso

Arts & Photography | Computers & Technology | Politics & Current Affairs

Talking about this book? Use #HowtoSeeLikeaMachine #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!

Description

We once looked at pictures. Then, with the advent of computer vision and machine learning, pictures started looking at us. By the award-winning artist, filmmaker and thinker.

Today our world is under the watchful and tireless eye of computer vision, with cameras and monitors tracing our every move. Furthermore, generative AI is now able to render a synthetic world indistinguishable from reality for us to explore. Trevor Paglen goes in search of the ways and means of understanding this new visual universe. Instead of asking what these technologies “say” about the world, he teaches us to ask what they “do” and where such images come from.

Exploring the esoteric worlds of psyops, UFO imagery, magicians, and public relation gurus, Paglen shows that this apparently alien realm is more human, but much stranger, than we imagine.