119 reviews for:

The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want

Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna

4.13 AVERAGE

flexmentallo's review against another edition

4.0

challenging informative reflective fast-paced

emmawilson's review against another edition

4.0

informative reflective medium-paced

toriss's review against another edition

5.0

challenging informative medium-paced

emilyreistermorris's review against another edition

4.0

informative fast-paced

zesmerelda's review against another edition

3.0

informative medium-paced

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An over-hyped text extrusion machine that's set to bulldoze through society without regard to the environment, creativity, or people. This book lays it out. 

smithpcw's review against another edition

3.5

informative medium-paced

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A bit uneven overall. The worst parts of the book are when the authors rely on anecdotes to support their arguments rather than systemic analysis. I was left with the impression of cherry picking at several points.  The recommendations in the conclusion amounted to taking individual actions (which have limited effectiveness) and implementing stronger government regulation (which are unlikely in our current  political climate). But I did find the section on the AI doomer/booster debates to be pretty solid - both of these camps are more worried about hypothetical future scenarios that may never come to pass, while totally ignoring the actual problems that are right in front of us today. And the points made about people's mental models when faced with synthetic media outputs were interesting also. We tend to assume there's a thinking person behind the content we encounter because that's been a fact for millennia, so no wonder people get fooled by automated systems designed to mimic that. Despite the hype, there's no intelligence there, only pattern matching. 

sassycatreads's review

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I’m already familiar with how LLMs work, so I’m really not getting anything out of it. Would probably be useful to someone new to the topic though. 

kinley99's review against another edition

4.5

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

northfox80's review against another edition

3.25

informative medium-paced

poorperdu's review against another edition

5.0

funny hopeful informative lighthearted fast-paced