AI Snake Oil - Bouquins

320 pages

Langue : English

Publié 2024 par Princeton University Press.

ISBN :: 978-0-691-24913-1

(1 critique)

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, 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 …

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, 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.

3 editions

Koantig reviewed AI Snake Oil by Sayash Kapoor

AI is not magic

4 étoiles

The book provides a good introduction to many different aspects of AI, an umbrella term for very different techniques. They cover 3 different domains: predictive AI, generative AI and AI for content moderation. There are many examples and plenty to agree with. In particular, people should treat the claims from predictive AI with the same degree of skepticism as any "traditional" solution: the vendor must prove first that the system works before one considers it. This seems like the least to ask but as soon as the word AI is sprinkled over a program, it seems that all critical thinking goes out of the window. AI is not special and this is also the stance of the FTC as well: even if it's AI-based, it is still subject to laws regarding false advertising. Despite their critics and their exposition of the limits of AI, the authors are still weirdly (and …

The book provides a good introduction to many different aspects of AI, an umbrella term for very different techniques. They cover 3 different domains: predictive AI, generative AI and AI for content moderation. There are many examples and plenty to agree with. In particular, people should treat the claims from predictive AI with the same degree of skepticism as any "traditional" solution: the vendor must prove first that the system works before one considers it. This seems like the least to ask but as soon as the word AI is sprinkled over a program, it seems that all critical thinking goes out of the window. AI is not special and this is also the stance of the FTC as well: even if it's AI-based, it is still subject to laws regarding false advertising. Despite their critics and their exposition of the limits of AI, the authors are still weirdly (and disappointingly) very positive about generative AI, seeing even more potential in it than in predictive AI. This is not going age well. The chapter about content moderation is fairly interesting and the argument that it is actually a good thing that this issue cannot be solved with any technology, including AI, is a convincing one. Those are political and moral decisions and they require an informed debate. They certainly can't be left to private companies or software engineers. (Incidently, their characterisation of content moderation on the Fediverse completely misses the mark ("worst of both worlds"); the point of moderation there is to protect and nurture a community/instance, not to fix the rest of the network in one fell swoop. Scaling is not the point.)

For a more informed and biting review of the book, see Edward Ongweso Jr's review in The New Republic (21 Nov. 2024).