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AI Snake Oil

What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference

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AI Snake Oil

Written by: Sayash Kapoor, Arvind Narayanan
Narrated by: Landon Woodson
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Buy Now for ₹585.00

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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

Includes a new preface and epilogue by the authors

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.

©2024 Sayash Kapoor (P)2024 Princeton University Press
Computer Science History & Culture
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balanced view ! well researched , I personally learnt quite some details on the history

balanced view ! well researched

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A good primer on the AI hype and mania and the perils of rushed and not clearly thought out AI implementations across industries

A timely research on AI hype.

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at times the discourse becomes too technical although author(s) were able to break any accidental monotony

separating fact from fiction. throwing light on AI in a lucid easy to understand way quoting real life examples

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Every new technology has been met with a hype that created either awe, fear or reverence for it. AI is no different. AI Snake Oil helps you by providing a guide rail which can be used to see through all the awe, fear and reverence regarding AI and use it constructively. As far as technology is concerned Good and Evil are just two sides of the same coin. Recommend this book for anyone interested in understanding AI.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

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The book starts off well, but then veers into a political discourse. At one point the author claims that one off events should not be a tool for exaggeration and generalisation, however the authors themselves use this as pretext to vilify other entities.
The later half of the book, in my opinion has a lot of confirmation bias.

Snake oil book

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