University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
AI Needs You
Book

AI Needs You

How We Can Change AI’s Future and Save Our Own

Verity Harding
Princeton UP, 2024
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Hot Topic
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

Dire warnings about the potential impacts of AI are everywhere, but what humanity needs is solutions. AI policy expert Verity Harding finds them by exploring the stories of three technical revolutions — the space race, IVF, and the internet — to learn how society established ethical, inclusive governance frameworks for them. Lucid, absorbing, and hopeful, Harding’s book illustrates how social values and the public good can be balanced against the political and business interests currently shaping AI’s future. An important and compelling contribution to the debate over AI.

Summary

An understanding of history can help society guide AI’s development and avoid the mistakes of past technologies.

AI has become the focal point of Silicon Valley’s innovation due to its capacity to revolutionize industries. The benefits of AI, particularly in enhancing productivity and transforming industries, are clear. Its ability to process vast amounts of data and automate decision-making position it as potentially the most disruptive technology of the modern era. However, history shows that rapid technological advancements often lead to unintended consequences. Past innovations, designed to improve the world, have frequently centralized power, deepened inequality, and been weaponized for control, surveillance, and manipulation.

The same risks exist with AI today. For example, the controversy surrounding Clearview AI’s invasive use of facial recognition technology — based on billions of facial images scraped from the internet — exposed how easily AI systems can cross ethical boundaries. To ensure AI’s development benefits everyone, it’s crucial that decision-makers learn from past mistakes. Interdisciplinary perspectives, including insights from history...

About the Author

Verity Harding is widely recognized for her influence in the field of artificial intelligence and technology policy. As a leader at the intersection of politics and tech, she worked with major institutions such as Google DeepMind, where she was the first Global Head of Policy, and more recently as the director of the AI & Geopolitics Project at Cambridge University’s Bennett Institute for Public Policy. She was listed among Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI in 2023.

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