
AI Snake Oil
What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference
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Narrated by:
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Landon Woodson
About this listen
This audiobook narrated by Landon Woodson reveals what you need to know about AI—and how to defend yourself against bogus AI claims and products
Comes with a bonus track featuring an illuminating discussion by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor
Confused about AI and worried about what it means for your future and the future of the world? You’re not alone. AI is everywhere—and few things are surrounded by so much hype, misinformation, and misunderstanding. In AI Snake Oil, computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor cut through the confusion to give you an essential understanding of how AI works, why it often doesn’t, where it might be useful or harmful, and when you should suspect that companies are using AI hype to sell AI snake oil—products that don’t work, and probably never will.
While acknowledging the potential of some AI, such as ChatGPT, AI Snake Oil uncovers rampant misleading claims about the capabilities of AI and describes the serious harms AI is already causing in how it’s being built, marketed, and used in areas such as education, medicine, hiring, banking, insurance, and criminal justice. The book explains the crucial differences between types of AI, why organizations are falling for AI snake oil, why AI can’t fix social media, why AI isn’t an existential risk, and why we should be far more worried about what people will do with AI than about anything AI will do on its own. The book also warns of the dangers of a world where AI continues to be controlled by largely unaccountable big tech companies.
By revealing AI’s limits and real risks, AI Snake Oil will help you make better decisions about whether and how to use AI at work and home.
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- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Something new entered our world in November 2022—the first general purpose AI that could pass for a human and do the kinds of creative, innovative work that only humans could do previously. Wharton professor Ethan Mollick immediately understood what ChatGPT meant: after millions of years on our own, humans had developed a kind of co-intelligence that could augment, or even replace, human thinking. Through his writing, speaking, and teaching, Mollick has become one of the most prominent and provocative explainers of AI.
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great intro book marred by poor narration
- By Amazon Customer on 04-14-24
By: Ethan Mollick
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The Hydrogen Revolution
- A Blueprint for the Future of Clean Energy
- By: Marco Alverà
- Narrated by: Matthew Spencer
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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We’re constantly told that our planet is in crisis; that to save it, we must stop traveling, stop eating meat, even stop having children. But in The Hydrogen Revolution, Marco Alverà argues that we don’t need to upend our lives. We just need a new kind of fuel: hydrogen.
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Hopeful and realistic future
- By Rachel Braddock Bayles on 03-25-24
By: Marco Alverà
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Master of None
- How a Jack-of-All-Trades Can Still Reach the Top
- By: Clifford Hudson
- Narrated by: Clifford Hudson
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people don't need to be experts in their field. Yes, the successful know more than the average person about a particular topic, and they often possess a better-than-average ability with a particular skill set; but not everyone who is successful is an expert, he makes clear. And yet we continue to deeply value the expertise ideal. In Master of None, Hudson turns expertise on its head and shows that by embracing variety and becoming more versatile, anyone can succeed and become more open to different opportunities in life.
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Not great, not bad
- By Brian Sachetta on 01-27-21
By: Clifford Hudson
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Talk to Me
- How to Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers, and Interview Anyone like a Pro
- By: Dean Nelson
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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From respected journalist, professor, and founder of the Writer's Symposium by the Sea, an audiobook that demystifies the art and science of interviewing, in the vein of On Writing Well or How to Read Literature like a Professor. Nelson walks listeners through each step of the journey from deciding whom to interview and structuring questions, to the nitty-gritty of how to use a recording device and effective note-taking strategies, to the ethical dilemmas of interviewing people you love (and loathe).
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Not just for journalist;great for Salespeople also
- By Eric D. Knowles on 03-28-19
By: Dean Nelson
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How to Use Limited Liability Companies and Limited Partnerships
- Getting the Most Out of Your Legal Structure
- By: Garrett Sutton
- Narrated by: Garrett Sutton
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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How to Use Limited Liability Companies and Limited Partnerships clearly explains the key asset protection strategies available to entrepreneurs and real estate investors using the right entities. This fourth edition of Garrett Sutton's best-selling book has been completely updated to reflect important changes affecting limited liability companies. Asset protection is a dynamic area of the law, and this new edition sets forth the strongest and most useful tactics for protecting businesses, real estate, intellectual property, and paper assets.
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Excellent for first time business owners
- By Craig Shields on 11-13-17
By: Garrett Sutton
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This Idea Is Brilliant
- Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know
- By: John Brockman
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Charles Constant
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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As science informs public policy, decision making, and so many aspects of our everyday lives, a scientifically literate society is crucial. In that spirit, Edge.org publisher and author of Know This, John Brockman, asks 206 of the world's most brilliant minds the 2017 Edge Question: What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?
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Condensed Brilliance in Digestable Chunks
- By Andrew on 02-15-18
By: John Brockman
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A Brief History of Earth
- Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters
- By: Andrew H. Knoll
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet's epic 4.6 billion-year story. Placing 21st-century climate change in deep context, A Brief History of Earth is an indispensable look at where we’ve been and where we’re going.
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Very chilling and well thought out
- By Colin Bump on 05-21-21
By: Andrew H. Knoll
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How We Change
- (And Ten Reasons Why We Don't)
- By: Ross Ellenhorn
- Narrated by: Nathan Agin
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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We all have something we want to change about ourselves. But whether it's quitting smoking, losing weight, or breaking some common bad habit or negative behavior pattern, we feel a sense of failure when we don’t succeed. This often sets off a cascade of negative feelings and discouragement, making it even harder to change. The voice in our head tells us: Why bother.
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Amazing! A must listen
- By greygreen on 03-26-21
By: Ross Ellenhorn
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Dereliction of Duty
- Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
- By: H. R. McMaster
- Narrated by: H. R. McMaster
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Dereliction of Duty is a stunning analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations, and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. McMaster pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants.
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Rough narration
- By AC Griffin on 12-04-19
By: H. R. McMaster
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Reentry
- SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets That Launched a Second Space Age
- By: Eric Berger
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
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From launchpad explosions to a pernicious cricket infestation to the demanding management style of Musk himself, the rise of SpaceX was beset with challenges and far from inevitable. Find out how the startup beat the odds and flew high enough to outpace their rivals... and where they're going next.
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Misplaced focus
- By Sam on 10-01-24
By: Eric Berger
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The Key Man
- The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale
- By: Simon Clark, Will Louch
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Arif Naqvi was charismatic, inspiring, and self-made—all the qualities of a successful business leader. The founder of Abraaj, a Dubai-based private-equity firm, Naqvi was the Key Man to the global elite searching for impact investments to make money and do good. In 2018, Simon Clark and Will Louch were contacted by an anonymous whistleblower who said Naqvi had swindled investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and offered bribes to sustain his billionaire lifestyle. In April 2019—months after their exposé broke—Naqvi was arrested on charges of fraud and racketeering.
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A great take on one of the greatest swindleds
- By Amer on 05-05-23
By: Simon Clark, and others
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The Art of Statistics
- How to Learn from Data
- By: David Spiegelhalter
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Statistics are everywhere, as integral to science as they are to business, and in the popular media hundreds of times a day. In this age of big data, a basic grasp of statistical literacy is more important than ever if we want to separate the fact from the fiction, the ostentatious embellishments from the raw evidence - and even more so if we hope to participate in the future, rather than being simple bystanders.
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very good statistics overview
- By Tom on 11-29-19
I’m entertained at the amount of AI anti-hype.
For the hot topic focused AI skeptics
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Emphasis on AI limitations.
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Fantastic book!
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The book lists many interesting cases of AI deployment, but feels too activist. There is a palpable effort to convince readers of the harms of AI. The title of the book is already misleading, as AI likens it to an unhelpful substance of snake oil, which AI surely is not. At the end of the chapters, there is no brief summary of what each chapter says.
Use of AI
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This book builds on conversations they have had on their blog, AI snake oil, which discusses the hype around AI and cuts through the bullshit. I highly recommend that you subscribe to their newsletter and definitely get this book.
I also highly recommend the audiobook because it contains a conversation between Arvind Narayanan and Sayesh Kapoor.
I appreciated the sensitivity with which they handled the audiobook narration conversation, especially given that I listened to this on Amazon, which has been trying to replace human narrators with AI generated content.
My best nonfiction read of 2024
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Mediocre
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The unraveling of it all
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Meh, seemed like a political discourse much of the time.
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It dispels myths and explains why there’s so much misinformation about AI. I recommend!
Timely, in-depth and accessible
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A realistic view on the over sensationalised technology
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