Possibly my favourite read for 2024 – amid the scramble to try and make sense of the escalating change being brought about by Artificial Intelligence, Amy Webb reveals how the pervasive, invisible ways in which the foundations of AI – the people working on the system, their motivations, the technology itself – are broken. For those of us who think that we are in control of the future of “artificial” intelligence, this book provides a challenging view of the future.
I particularly appreciated the framework of possible futures Webb outlines in the book – optimistic, pragmatic and catastrophic. The key message here is that if we want to pursue the optimistic scenario we need to be prepared to be more informed and engage in public discourse, debating the issues and making life-style choices that will ensure we collectively achieve this – and not abdicate that responsibility to the small number of giant Tech companies who are currently determining our future for us.
