
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
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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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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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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while it's capable of some remarkable things, we shouldn't forget or ignore all the things that it does so poorly as to be embarrassing if children made the same mistakes.
assuming it's brilliant or correct just because it's AI at its current state is dangerous, foolish and irresponsible.
The authors make some good points about the responsibility for AI harms and liability which should lie squarely on the large big tech firms who develop it.
A. much-needed and grounded balance to the hype of AI.
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Fantastic book!
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Essential
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The unraveling of it all
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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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