AI Reading Group 2023

The year 2023 was defined by the release of ChatGPT in November 2022. The Reading Group started the year with "The Costs of Connection" (2019) by Couldry and Mejias, which continued a theme from the previous year about data, surveillance and privacy. This book explores the hidden societal consequences of digital platforms. The authors argue that these platforms extract data from users, leading to surveillance capitalism, reinforcing social inequality, and exploiting global labor. 

Our next book was a time travel journey way back to 2016: "Weapons of Math Destruction" by Cathy O'Neil. This important and classic text reveals the now well-known dark side of algorithms and biased mathematical models, showing how they can perpetuate inequality and undermine democracy. Next, "Metrics at Work" by Angèle Christin is a comparative study between France and the US exploring the dramatic transformation of journalism specifically, and more generally, the thinking professions, as they are subjected to extreme quantification and “click bait.”

"The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can't Think the Way We Do" (2021) by Erik J. Larson divided our group into those who found the book to be an enlightening exploration of the weaknesses of current so-called AI, and those who felt that the mere experience of using ChatGPT made the entire text obsolete. "More Than a Glitch" (2023) by Meredith Broussard proved to be a contextualization of previous readings such as "Weapons of Math Destruction" and "Algorithms of Oppression" demonstrating their continued importance outside their specific circumstances of time and place.

In an effort to explore more recent work, for 4 months we read and discussed articles. We discussed ethics, academic sexism, the bedside manner of chatbots, labeling images with abstract descriptions, and all the vagaries of that new land, Prompt Engineering.

Our final book of the year was the popular autobiography, "The Worlds I See" (2023) by Fei-Fei Li. Against the backdrop of her journey as an immigrant from China to the U.S., the author explores her intellectual development and the recent history of AI, notably her leadership in the Imagenet project. The book illustrates the interplay between Li's life experiences and how they influenced her decisions in pursuing projects, both large and small, contributing to global advancements in this field.

We are unofficial, self-organized, ad hoc and welcome anyone who is interested. Join us on the AI4LAM Slack channel #reading-group. A list of our readings is here. Typically we meet at 9:30am PT/12:30pm ET on occasional Fridays.