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  • AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan book cover
  • AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan book cover
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AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference

by Arvind Narayanan

Separating AI’s capabilities from its claims

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AlbakiReads Editorial

Separating AI’s capabilities from its claims

Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor examine the gap between what different forms of AI can do and what companies claim they can do. The book distinguishes among types of AI, considers where these systems may be useful or harmful, and traces misleading or inflated claims across fields including education, medicine, hiring, banking, insurance, and criminal justice. It also turns attention to the people and institutions deploying AI, including the influence of major technology companies. The result is a practical framework for assessing AI products and claims, with questions about both technical limits and the consequences of how these systems are built and used.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers seeking an accessible framework for evaluating AI claims and products.
  • People interested in AI’s use and harms across workplaces and public services.
  • Readers concerned with how technology companies shape the development and use of AI.

Themes

AI capabilities and limitationsCommercial hype and misinformationAI’s effects across institutionsCorporate accountability

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

From two of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI, what you need to know about AI--and how to defend yourself against bogus AI claims and products

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 and 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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