A call-to-arms about the broken nature of artificial cleverness, as well as the powerful corporations that are turning the human-machine relationship on its mind.

We prefer to believe that we are in control of the continuing future of ‘artificial’ intelligence. The reality, though, is that we–the people whose data capabilities AI–aren’t actually in charge of anything. When, for example, we consult with Alexa, we lead that data to a system we can’t observe and also have no input into–one largely free from about THE BEST Nine: The way the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Mankind rules or oversight. The best nine corporations–Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Microsoft, IBM and Apple–are the new gods of AI and are short-changing our futures to reap immediate profit.

In this book, Amy Webb shows the pervasive, invisible ways in which the foundations of AI–the people focusing on the system, their motivations, the technology itself–is broken. In your lifetimes, AI will, by design, begin to behave unpredictably, considering and acting with techniques which defy human logic. The big nine corporations may be inadvertently building and enabling vast arrays of intelligent systems that don’t talk about our motivations, desires, or hopes for future years of humanity.

Much greater than a passionate, human-centered call-to-arms, this book delivers a technique for changing course of action, and a path for liberating us from algorithmic decision-makers and highly effective corporations.