These two book are passionate discussions of the problems that AI poses for us all.
Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, by Karen Hao, 496 pages ISBN/UID: 978059365750820 May 2025, Penguin Press
This is a big book written for the general reader by an experienced tech journalist. It is a slow read for someone who know only the hype about AI. She explains the development of OpenAI in language that convey basic ideas about how large language models were invented and developed.
The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want, by Emily M. Bendery & Alex Hannah, 274 pages, ISBN/UID: 9780063418561, May 2025, Harper
Link to Emily M. Bender , Dept. of Linguistics, University of Washington
Link to Alex Hanna, sociologist, Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)
This book is shorter and less demanding than Hao’s book. It is not as thorough on some of the topics that Hao covers, but it is more lively and more wide ranging
