clelejaleo's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
holzealy's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
lifeinpoetry's review against another edition
4.0
edit: After seeing how AI has been weaponized against marginalized people, especially in the legal system and in healthcare, I think this book was extremely naive, lacking in intersectionality, and ignores the here and now, instead focusing on a utopian future.
-
I honestly think there need to be more humanities majors writing in depth about technology so I appreciated this book. Sometimes a bit basic for my tastes but I finally noped out of being a sysadmin in 2015/2016 after about 17 years so I'm definitely rusty and AI was never something I had dabbled in. She's a lot more hopeful than I am about AI and tech and her take on it would likely not move too many people in tech but hopefully this gets some people interested on either side.
-
owlette's review against another edition
1.0
[edited: 2023/03/15]
If I'm being charitable, I'd say I was not the target audience for this book. But to be honest, the book is vapid and naive at best, insensitive and misinformed at worst.
The writing is terrible. While recounting how Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, accidentally wrote a scientific paper based on lecture notes written in French, Wintersen puts this in: "Then, as now, Europeans are likely to speak more than one language, while the English don't bother." The remark has nothing to do with the passage because Ada was learned in French thanks to her upbringing. Wintersen's attempt to be witty thus comes off as classist. Even if she notes that these essays are intended for those uninformed about current progress in AI, when she says things like, "Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron, so it was important to show some respect to poets (37)," I really start wondering what she thinks of her readers.
My frustration was compounded by the shallowness of her knowledge. She calls Facebook's FBLearner Flow an "AI prediction engine (297)." (It's not; it's just a wrapper or, as Facebook's blog calls it, "a platform" for running machine learning experiments in-house instead of using other open source packages that provide a similar framework.) Elsewhere she brings up 3D-printed houses as an AI solution to the housing crisis (293). One, as far as I can tell, there is yet to be an AI component to this use of 3d printing. Two and more importantly, as this Reddit responder points out, "[t]he housing crisis isn't caused by how long it takes to build a house." There is a short bibliography at the end of the book, but clearly, her research isn't comprehensive.
Sometimes she recognizes that we need to keep Big Tech companies accountable to protect ourselves, the consumers, from being made commodities for their algorithms and tokens of backdoor data exchange. But other times, she lacks specificity in her analysis: "It's humans we need to worry about (272)"; "We're all to blame--the USA, China, Russia, the UK; we're all missing the point that we are, collectively, not the victim but the aggressor (278)." I feel uneasy when she puts the blame on everyone like this. It has a similar aftertaste to "All lives matter." She's dismissing that the technology in place right now has value embedded in them that continues to hurt the marginalized and the poor.
I've known Wintersen's obsession with Frankenstein, the Romantics, and the Genesis from her fiction ([b:Frankissstein: A Love Story|42123790|Frankissstein A Love Story|Jeanette Winterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1547329058l/42123790._SY75_.jpg|65720818] and[b:Boating for Beginners|324271|Boating for Beginners|Jeanette Winterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1323743695l/324271._SY75_.jpg|1102644]). Still, I found it creepy how these motifs, especially the doomsday vision, percolate through these essays. She thinks intelligence is all in the brains (which is perhaps why Dr. Stein in [b:Frankissstein: A Love Story|42123790|Frankissstein A Love Story|Jeanette Winterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1547329058l/42123790._SY75_.jpg|65720818] only keeps the brain of his friend to be revived) and finds solace in the very bodylessness of an absolute AI, as if computers like the ones that would power AGI wouldn't consume a large amount of material and energy.
To Wintersen, activism and politics are "madness--doing the same old things yet expecting different results (140)." She keeps saying a non-human superintelligence will help us all. Help us do what? "A total reboot of priorities and methods (137)." The outcome of her technological pantheism is a tabula rasa where all our current problems have been ctrl+deleted. It rubs off as antihumanist.
For more humanist and well-researched takes on the implications of AI and social accountability of the Big Tech, here are some recommendations from my bookshelves and bookmarks:
- [b:Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code|42527493|Race After Technology Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code|Ruha Benjamin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1576795927l/42527493._SY75_.jpg|66245113] by Ruha Benjamin (2019)
- [b:Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism|34762552|Algorithms of Oppression How Search Engines Reinforce Racism|Safiya Umoja Noble|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492944248l/34762552._SX50_.jpg|55962260] by Safiya Noble (2018)
- [b:Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men|41104077|Invisible Women Data Bias in a World Designed for Men|Caroline Criado Pérez|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1617113740l/41104077._SY75_.jpg|64218580] by Caroline Criado-Perez (2019)
- [b:Lurking: How a Person Became a User|43565344|Lurking How a Person Became a User|Joanne McNeil|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553563781l/43565344._SY75_.jpg|67780601] by Joanne McNeil (2020)
- The Markup for investigative journalism that keeps the Big Tech accountable
- writings by Abeba Birbane
- on demystifying Chat GPT-3, see this n+1 essay by [a:Meghan O'Gieblyn|17979517|Meghan O'Gieblyn|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1629222715p2/17979517.jpg] (2021) and this New Yorker essay by [a:Ted Chiang|130698|Ted Chiang|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399023404p2/130698.jpg] (2023)
If I'm being charitable, I'd say I was not the target audience for this book. But to be honest, the book is vapid and naive at best, insensitive and misinformed at worst.
The writing is terrible. While recounting how Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, accidentally wrote a scientific paper based on lecture notes written in French, Wintersen puts this in: "Then, as now, Europeans are likely to speak more than one language, while the English don't bother." The remark has nothing to do with the passage because Ada was learned in French thanks to her upbringing. Wintersen's attempt to be witty thus comes off as classist. Even if she notes that these essays are intended for those uninformed about current progress in AI, when she says things like, "Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron, so it was important to show some respect to poets (37)," I really start wondering what she thinks of her readers.
My frustration was compounded by the shallowness of her knowledge. She calls Facebook's FBLearner Flow an "AI prediction engine (297)." (It's not; it's just a wrapper or, as Facebook's blog calls it, "a platform" for running machine learning experiments in-house instead of using other open source packages that provide a similar framework.) Elsewhere she brings up 3D-printed houses as an AI solution to the housing crisis (293). One, as far as I can tell, there is yet to be an AI component to this use of 3d printing. Two and more importantly, as this Reddit responder points out, "[t]he housing crisis isn't caused by how long it takes to build a house." There is a short bibliography at the end of the book, but clearly, her research isn't comprehensive.
Sometimes she recognizes that we need to keep Big Tech companies accountable to protect ourselves, the consumers, from being made commodities for their algorithms and tokens of backdoor data exchange. But other times, she lacks specificity in her analysis: "It's humans we need to worry about (272)"; "We're all to blame--the USA, China, Russia, the UK; we're all missing the point that we are, collectively, not the victim but the aggressor (278)." I feel uneasy when she puts the blame on everyone like this. It has a similar aftertaste to "All lives matter." She's dismissing that the technology in place right now has value embedded in them that continues to hurt the marginalized and the poor.
I've known Wintersen's obsession with Frankenstein, the Romantics, and the Genesis from her fiction ([b:Frankissstein: A Love Story|42123790|Frankissstein A Love Story|Jeanette Winterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1547329058l/42123790._SY75_.jpg|65720818] and[b:Boating for Beginners|324271|Boating for Beginners|Jeanette Winterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1323743695l/324271._SY75_.jpg|1102644]). Still, I found it creepy how these motifs, especially the doomsday vision, percolate through these essays. She thinks intelligence is all in the brains (which is perhaps why Dr. Stein in [b:Frankissstein: A Love Story|42123790|Frankissstein A Love Story|Jeanette Winterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1547329058l/42123790._SY75_.jpg|65720818] only keeps the brain of his friend to be revived) and finds solace in the very bodylessness of an absolute AI, as if computers like the ones that would power AGI wouldn't consume a large amount of material and energy.
To Wintersen, activism and politics are "madness--doing the same old things yet expecting different results (140)." She keeps saying a non-human superintelligence will help us all. Help us do what? "A total reboot of priorities and methods (137)." The outcome of her technological pantheism is a tabula rasa where all our current problems have been ctrl+deleted. It rubs off as antihumanist.
For more humanist and well-researched takes on the implications of AI and social accountability of the Big Tech, here are some recommendations from my bookshelves and bookmarks:
- [b:Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code|42527493|Race After Technology Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code|Ruha Benjamin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1576795927l/42527493._SY75_.jpg|66245113] by Ruha Benjamin (2019)
- [b:Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism|34762552|Algorithms of Oppression How Search Engines Reinforce Racism|Safiya Umoja Noble|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492944248l/34762552._SX50_.jpg|55962260] by Safiya Noble (2018)
- [b:Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men|41104077|Invisible Women Data Bias in a World Designed for Men|Caroline Criado Pérez|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1617113740l/41104077._SY75_.jpg|64218580] by Caroline Criado-Perez (2019)
- [b:Lurking: How a Person Became a User|43565344|Lurking How a Person Became a User|Joanne McNeil|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553563781l/43565344._SY75_.jpg|67780601] by Joanne McNeil (2020)
- The Markup for investigative journalism that keeps the Big Tech accountable
- writings by Abeba Birbane
- on demystifying Chat GPT-3, see this n+1 essay by [a:Meghan O'Gieblyn|17979517|Meghan O'Gieblyn|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1629222715p2/17979517.jpg] (2021) and this New Yorker essay by [a:Ted Chiang|130698|Ted Chiang|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399023404p2/130698.jpg] (2023)
cathena242's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
samantha_diluca_duckworth's review
adventurous
funny
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
5.0
Fantastic book for anyone with an interest in science and artificial intelligence. A true telling of the history, and potential future, of computer science giving credit where credit is due.