Atlas of AI

What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? Drawing on more than a decade of original research, award-winning science and technology scholar Kate Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the energy and minerals needed to build and sustain its infrastructure, to the exploited workers behind "automated" services, to the data AI collects from us. She persuasively argues that this network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance. This book is an eye-opening story of how a few are making powerful infrastructures, at the expense of the many. Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a planetary perspective on what it takes to make AI. The window of opportunity for change is rapidly closing and the stakes – for justice, due process, and democratic participation – could not be higher.