Routledge The Culture of AI: Everyday Life and the Digital Revolution

In this ground-breaking book, Cambridge-trained sociologist Anthony Elliott argues that much of what passes for conventional wisdom about artificial intelligence is either ill-considered or plain wrong. The reason? The AI revolution is not so much about cyborgs and super-robots in the future, but rather massive changes in the here-and-now of everyday life. In The Culture of AI, Elliott explores how intelligent machines, advanced robotics, accelerating automation, big data and the Internet of Everything impact upon day-to-day life and contemporary societies. With remarkable clarity and insight, Elliott’s examination of the reordering of everyday life highlights the centrality of AI to everything we do – from receiving Amazon recommendations to requesting Uber, and from getting information from virtual personal assistants to talking with chatbots. The rise of intelligent machines transforms the global economy and threatens jobs, but equally there are other major challenges to contemporary societies – although these challenges are unfolding in complex and uneven ways across the globe. The Culture of AI explores technological innovations from industrial robots to softbots, and from self-driving cars to military drones – and along the way provides detailed treatments of: The history of AI and the advent of the digital universe; automated technology, jobs and employment; the self and private life in times of accelerating machine intelligence; AI and new forms of social interaction; automated vehicles and new warfare; and, the future of AI. Written by one of the world’s foremost social theorists, The Culture of AI is a major contribution to the field and a provocative reflection on one of the most urgent issues of our time. It will be essential reading to those working in a wide variety of disciplines including sociology, science and technology studies, politics, and cultural studies. Review "A unique and original contribution to the debate about AI now unfolding across the world. Rather than offering an exercise in futurology, Elliott provides a detailed and sophisticated analysis of the impact of AI and the digital revolution in the here and now." - Professor Lord Anthony Giddens, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics "The book breaks new ground by covering familiar debates about the impact of digital systems – Robotics, AI and Machine Learning - on jobs; communication, mobility and life-styles; the transformation of identities and self; embattled democracies and the global economic order. By focusing on everyday digital experience it provides well-argued insights into the adaptive interactions between humans and digital machines and into the digitally mediated connectivity between humans. It presents the self as information system and thus a timely answer to pervasive cultural anxieties and techno-hype alike. Anthony Elliott prepares us to better understand the digital world that surrounds us already." - Helga Nowotny, Professor Emerita of Science and Technology Studies, ETH Zurich, and Former President of the European Research Council (ERC) "Hollywood has blinded us to the idea that AI will bring a future of intelligent robots. But, as Anthony Elliott shows in this important book, the reality is that AI is already here and its impact encompasses the entirety of our social relations. A very welcome addition to the debate about the impact of AI on society." - Toby Walsh, Professor of AI, UNSW and author of 2062: The World that AI Made "Artificial Intelligence is an overused term which has been the subject of too many inflated claims. So we are lucky that in this book, Anthony Elliott expertly guides us through this thicket of hyperbole and out onto clearer ground. His emphasis on what software does - what Kaplan has called anthropic computing - and how it is transforming the mundanities of everyday life through a grab-bag of software is a welcome antidote to AI as a false idol whic