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Podcast: New Books in Economic and Business History
Episode: Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, "The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want" (Harper, 2025)
Description: Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything?
Linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear that kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.” Hype twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to repl...