A Citizen's Guide to Artificial Intelligence

“With the explosive expansion of cloud computing capacity, mobile communication technologies, and the internet of things over the past couple of decades, AI systems have become an increasingly unavoidable—indeed pervasive—part of our everyday lives. And yet, many of us have very little idea of how these technologies actually work, or of where, when, and how they are being used by law enforcement agencies, private companies and governments. The authors of A Citizen's Guide to Artificial Intelligence do a masterful job of opening a public conversation that promises to redress this troubling knowledge gap. The book casts an interdisciplinary floodlight on how algorithmic tools are being used in areas ranging from health care, law and social services to social media and business, and it explains the basic technical components of AI in a jargon-free manner. Likewise, it broaches many of the crucial ethical issues surrounding AI applications such as privacy, bias, accountability, and autonomy in an equally clear and accessible way. This work is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the moral, legal, political, and economic stakes of the use of AI systems in a connected human world increasingly, though often unwittingly, entangled in such technologies.”

David Leslie, Ethics Team Lead, Alan Turing Institute

A Citizen's Guide to Artificial Intelligence is a text that ought to be read widely. The book's subject matter is highly relevant and it provokes many probing questions that deserve further consideration on the part of the reader and broader society. [... ] It's a book that one could recommend to any individual without feeling guilty about sharing an overly complex topic. Zerilli et al. are exemplary in the clarity of their explanations of AI and its influence on society.

London School of Economics blog