A review by lucyp21
Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI by Madhumita Murgia

informative medium-paced

4.5

 

I requested this book from NetGalley when I saw it on the Women's Prize Longlist and discovered it wouldn't be coming out until the end of March, after the shortlist was announced. I didn't get this finished by the time the shortlist was announced but I had started it by that point. 

This book looks at AI and what exactly it does, both in terms of the technology it uses, but also how it is built in the first place. It is an extremely topical book and I commend the author on already keeping an eye on the AI technology before it started being used all over the place. Murgia does a really good job at not only looking at the way AI can harm society negatively, through loss of privacy for example, but also how it can benefit society (medical situations) but only if it is used alongside human skill. When AI works to people's benefit is when it is used to give people a second opinion, rather than replacing people/workers altogether. 

Murgia travels all around the world as the use of AI, and especially the creation of it, doesn't just happen in the Global North. She looks at how it gets trained, who does the training and what kind of situation the trainers themselves are in (in terms of pay and working conditions). And, as expected, there is exploitation going on in the creation of it, but also in the use of it. And this book is great at talking about the wider implications on relying on a computer trained by humans to be impartial or objective. 

4.5 stars!