Mapping AI’s Societal Impact

AI is not just code and algorithms. It’s an industry built on a global network of resource extraction, human labor, and data collection. Kate Crawford, senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research and research professor of communication and science and technology studies at USC Annenberg, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the far-reaching impacts of AI and to consider the urgent case for proper governance and regulation of the industry.

They also discuss:

• Why we need to observe hardware supply chains to understand AI’s impact.
• Why the AI industry, like aviation and pharma, should be subject to strict regulation.
• Why tech leaders should take a much greater responsibility for the social and environmental effects of technical systems.

@katecrawford
@azeem
@ExponentialView

Further Reading:

• “Anatomy of an AI System” (Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler, 2018)
• “AI, Accountability, and Power” (Exponential View with Mereditch Whitaker, 2019)
• “Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence” (Kate Crawford, Yale University Press 2021)
• “How AI is exploiting people and the planet” (New Scientist, 2021)
• “Time to regulate AI that interprets human emotions” (Nature, 2021)