The Culture of AI

A unique and original contribution to the debate about AI now unfolding across the world. Rather than offering an exercise in futurology, Elliott provides a detailed and sophisticated analysis of the impact of AI and the digital revolution in the here and now. - Professor Lord Anthony Giddens, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics The book breaks new ground by covering familiar debates about the impact of digital systems - Robotics, AI and Machine Learning - on jobs; communication, mobility and life-styles; the transformation of identities and self; embattled democracies and the global economic order. By focusing on everyday digital experience it provides well-argued insights into the adaptive interactions between humans and digital machines and into the digitally mediated connectivity between humans. It presents the self as information system and thus a timely answer to pervasive cultural anxieties and techno-hype alike. Anthony Elliott prepares us to better understand the digital world that surrounds us already. - Helga Nowotny, Professor Emerita of Science and Technology Studies, ETH Zurich, and Former President of the European Research Council (ERC) Hollywood has blinded us to the idea that AI will bring a future of intelligent robots. But, as Anthony Elliott shows in this important book, the reality is that AI is already here and its impact encompasses the entirety of our social relations. A very welcome addition to the debate about the impact of AI on society. - Toby Walsh, Professor of AI, UNSW and author of 2062: The World that AI Made Artificial Intelligence is an overused term which has been the subject of too many inflated claims. So we are lucky that in this book, Anthony Elliott expertly guides us through this thicket of hyperbole and out onto clearer ground. His emphasis on what software does - what Kaplan has called anthropic computing - and how it is transforming the mundanities of everyday life through a grab-bag of software is a welcome antidote to AI as a false idol which, at the same time, shows us where the opportunities and worries really are. A measured read which really takes the measure of AI. - Sir Nigel Thrift, Visiting Professor, Oxford and Tsinghua Universities Anthony Elliott's compelling and accessible book is an impressive survey of the impact of artificial intelligence on almost everything, from global politics to everyday communication. Adopting his fine theoretical lens, he raises crucial questions particularly regarding the power of automated technologies to reconfigure our sense of ourselves, our very identity. The book is essential reading for understanding the way digital transformations work in the contemporary moment. - Judy Wajcman, Anthony Giddens Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics In his new book The Culture of AI, Elliott - dean of external engagement, professor of sociology and executive director of the Hawke EU Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and Network at the University of South Australia - argues that while apocalyptic fears of a future dominated by cyborgs and killer robots are missing the point, the prospect of mass unemployment is very real. According to Elliott, the AI revolution is already upon us. It is acting alongside associated trends - including accelerated automation, big data, 3D printing, cloud computing, Industry 4.0 and the internet of everything - to reshape everyday life in pervasive but often mundane ways. - John Ross, Times Higher Education