Author(s): Kate Crawford

Non-Fiction | Mel M's Book Talkers

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: MEL M

I don’t know if I’ve read a more alarming and fascinating book than this - it’s like the internet age’s Silent Spring. Author Kate Crawford is a researcher for Microsoft and in that sense may be termed a whistleblower of sorts, as she makes claims – backed up by rigorous and voluminous amounts of evidence – that expose the tech industry’s unchecked growth and call into question the very foundations of our digitally saturated culture. Crawford takes what is an enormously – even surreally – complex topic and distils it down into an ‘atlas’, that is, into its major distinct layers: earth, data, labour, classification, etc. This approach allows for a survey that feels comprehensive without claiming to be exhaustive. Particularly alarming was the chapter on ‘data’ which details how the tech industry is undergirded by hundreds of thousands of companies that amass and then sell our data – usually to the benefit of a few corporate monopolies like Apple, Microsoft and IBM. This book also challenges the idea marketed to us that digital products spring from nowhere, sleek, shiny, and ready for us: in fact their production relies on mass mechanised extraction from the earth – usually in developing countries or capital-poor areas. Ultimately, this book makes clear the human and environmental cost of artificial intelligence, which it turns out is neither artificial, nor terribly intelligent. Read this if you’ve ever skimmed over a privacy policy before using new software or a website.