The books suggested below explores various themes related to Artificial Intelligence and data ethics, including topics such as bias, the ethical and social implications of AI, and automated decision-making on issues like social justice, inequality, discrimination, inclusivity, and the protection of basic rights.
“Without AI, medical technology wouldn’t have come so far, we’d still be getting lost on backroads in our GPS-free cars, and smartphones wouldn’t be so, well, smart. But as we continue to build more intelligent and autonomous machines, what impact will this have on humanity and the planet?”
A sequel to Ford’s New York Times best seller, Rise of the Robots: Technology and the threat of a jobless future (2015), Ford:
“… argues that AI is a uniquely powerful technology that is altering every dimension of human life, often for the better. For example, advanced science is being done by machines, solving devilish problems in molecular biology that humans could not, and AI can help us fight climate change or the next pandemic. It also has a capacity for profound harm.”
“In Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America. The book is full of heart-wrenching and eye-opening stories, from a woman in Indiana whose benefits are literally cut off as she lays dying to a family in Pennsylvania in daily fear of losing their daughter because they fit a certain statistical profile.”
"This study argues that [artificial intelligence] is neither artificial nor particularly intelligent. . . . A fascinating history of the data on which machine-learning systems are trained."—New Yorker
“It is about power, about who has it and who doesn't, and about how those differentials of power can be challenged and changed.”
For a useful list of even more further reading, visit the Bookshop.org page here.
How the bias of the past is being built into the future
Walkley Award-winning journalist Tracey Spicer exposes the next frontier of feminism through the lens of artificial intelligence. Man-Made aims to open readers’ eyes to a transformative technological shift in society and give them the tools to make positive change.
Winner, 2023 Australian Business Book Awards, Social Responsibility
Longlisted for the 2023 Walkley Book Award
'Mum, I want a robot slave.'
Broadcaster Tracey Spicer had an epiphany when her young son uttered these six words. Suddenly, her life’s work fighting inequality seemed futile. What’s the point in agitating to change the present, if bigotry is being embedded into our futures?
And so began a quest to uncover who was responsible and hold them to account. Who is the ultimate villain? Big Tech, whose titans refuse to spend money to fix the problem? The world’s politicians, who lack the will to legislate? Or should we all be walking into a hall of mirrors and taking a good, hard look at ourselves…?
This is a deeply researched, illuminating and gripping ride into an uncertain AI-fuelled future, culminating in a resounding call to action that will shake the tech sector to its foundations.
Praise for Man-Made
‘Exhilarating … The book we need as we grapple with how AI will change our lives and our world.’ Dame Quentin Bryce
‘Brilliant, hilarious and terrifying. You’ll never see Alexa the same way again.’ Juanita Phillips
‘Tracey Spicer uses her unmistakably human voice to warn us all about the deeply sexist Frankenstein’s Monster that is modern AI.’ Yumi Stynes