I've been traveling a lot recently and wandered last week in Venice to an architectural exhibit celebrating two scholars, Kate Crawford and Microsoft Research from USC Annenberg, and Vladan Joler from Novi Sad University in Serbia. Their exhibition, spread across dozens of large boards, depicted the growth of technology and power since 1500.
It charted the history of weapons, from gunpowder to nuclear bombs, to the microdronos and autonomous cyber warfare beyond. It's cold.
I also learned that Kate Crawford was an early scholar of artificial intelligence and one of the critics of the dangers of its technology, and was in the hands of the wrong people. She published in 2021 AI Atlas with Yale University Press. It was the history and analysis of artificial intelligence, and as I read, it was intended as an urgent warning that AI had taken hold so quickly among American billionaires and military contractors as it was trying to rebuild and control the global economy.
Crawford's books are dense, but very easy to read. She argues that AI should not be kept in the hands of retired American generals and billionaires.
Below is a preliminary explanation of the key points Crawford covers in her book. Two more essays focus on specific, mostly unexpected potential consequences.
