An essential reading list to make sense of the AI IndustryLike this list

16 items

• Empire of AI

  Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI /

  Hao, Karen

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  Empire of AI covers the rise of OpenAI, as well as the formation of Anthropic and OpenAI chief Sam Altman’s split with Elon Musk.

• Project Maven

  a Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare

  Manson, Katrina

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  An in-depth look at how the US military and Palantir worked together to build autonomous weapons and surveillance systems that are an actual catastrophic threat – not an imagined one.

• HYPERSCALE: THE AMBITION AND EXCESS OF BIG TECH'S DATA EMPIRES

  Marx, Paris

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  From the journalist and host of the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast, this is a deep investigation into the physical impact of AI data centers around the world, and the toll they are taking on local communities and the global environment.

• Your Face Belongs to Us

  a Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It

  Hill, Kashmir,

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  A bestselling book on the rise of Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that has provided sweeping surveillance powers to law enforcement, businesses and billionaires, by building a massive database of online images.

• The AI Con

  How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want

  Bender, Emily M., 1973-

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  In response to claims that AI will soon far surpass all human capabilities, and that the technology is advancing so quickly it’s on the verge of becoming a new life form, the authors of The AI Con have a simple response: “LOL” and “they wish”.

• If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

  Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All

  Yudkowsky, Eliezer, 1979-

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  f you want to understand the perspective of the people panicking that AI will destroy humanity, this book is a good place to start. It’s a “doomer classic”

• Superintelligence

  Paths, Dangers, Strategies

  Bostrom, Nick, 1973-

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  This 2014 book is one of the foundational AI texts for people like Elon Musk, who, alongside Bill Gates, has publicly praised the bestseller. While the book is useful as a way of understanding the evolution of arguments about how a superintelligent…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Genesis

  Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit

  Kissinger, Henry, 1923-2023

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  AI’s ability to provide swift answers without explaining how it got them might end our current “age of reason” and lead humanity back to a “pre-modern acceptance of unexplained authority”. They also raise the possibility that “the companies that own…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Technological Republic

  Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West

  Karp, Alexander C.

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  This book provides an important window into what top tech CEOs actually believe, and the way they regard AI and tech as a new nuclear bomb – which, in their view, is a good thing.

• The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State

  Lepore, Jill, 1966-

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  A historical look at the political and industrial movements that have wanted to cede human agency and democratic rule to automation and authoritarianism.

• More Everything Forever

  AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity

  Becker, Adam, 1984-

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  Exploring accelerationism, rationalism, doomerism and more, the book emphasizes how strange and detached from reality these powerful people’s belief systems are.

• Automating Inequality

  How High-tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor

  Eubanks, Virginia, 1972-

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  This 2018 book predates the generative AI boom, but it provides an essential view into how automated systems and algorithms reinforce social inequality.

• Prophecy

  Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, From Ancient Oracles to AI

  Véliz, Carissa,

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  Tracing the parallels between ancient seers, court astrologers, and contemporary algorithms, an Oxford University philosopher argues that “the main promise of prediction is not knowledge of the future but domination over others.”

• I, Robot

  Asimov, Isaac, 1920-1992

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  Though it was first published in 1950, Asimov’s collection of short stories on the ethics of human-robot interactions remains influential, including his “Three Laws of Robotics”, starting with: “A robot may not injure a human being or, through…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Lost Books of the Odyssey

  Mason, Zachary, 1974-

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  In 2007, a computer scientist from Palo Alto published a collection of 46 retellings of passages from the Odyssey – a book that riffs on the way narratives get revised, fragmented, and reborn. Mason was actively imagining the prose AI might produce…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Feeling overwhelmed by the AI doom loop? Here’s the essential reading list to make sense of it all | Books | The Guardian

  View on theguardian.com

  It’s a chaotic time in an industry that’s reshaping our lives – Guardian reporters and experts recommend the books that help explain how we got here, and where we’re headed