The Reference Shelf

The technologies currently being marketed as 'artificial intelligence' seem to have taken over the world in a brief span, with corporations scrambling to add their own AI features so they won't be left behind. But each feature comes at a cost. From the tremendous environmental wastefulness of AI search engines, to the devastation to creative industries, AI is wreaking havoc on American culture and society in many different ways. Ethicists and scientists are struggling to understand and to address the threats of this new technology even as chatbots and generated content become more and more pervasive, intensifying a whole host of challenges, from income inequality to political radicalization.