STAYING IN CHARGE: How do we navigate a world populated by algorithms that beat us in chess, find us romantic partners, and tell us to “turn right in 500 yards”?

“Anyone worried about the age of AI will sleep better after reading this intelligent account” about the limits and dangers of technology (Publishers Weekly).

Doomsday prophets of technology predict that robots will take over the world, leaving humans behind in the dust. Tech industry boosters think replacing people with software might make the world a better place—while tech industry critics warn darkly about surveillance capitalism. Despite their differing views of the future, they all seem to agree: machines will soon do everything better than humans. In How to Stay Smart in a Smart World, Gerd Gigerenzer shows why that’s not true, and tells us how we can stay in charge in a world populated by algorithms.

Machines powered by artificial intelligence are good at some things (playing chess), but not others (life-and-death decisions, or anything involving uncertainty). Gigerenzer explains why algorithms often fail at finding us romantic partners (love is not chess), why self-driving cars fall prey to the Russian Tank Fallacy, and how judges and police rely increasingly on nontransparent “black box” algorithms to predict whether a criminal defendant will reoffend or show up in court. He invokes Black Mirror, considers the privacy paradox (people want privacy but give their data away), and explains that social media get us hooked by programming intermittent reinforcement in the form of the “like” button. We shouldn’t trust smart technology unconditionally, Gigerenzer tells us, but we shouldn’t fear it unthinkingly, either.
Introduction
The Human Affair with AI
1.Is true love just a click away?
2.What AI is best at: The stable-world principle
3.Machines influence how we think of intelligence
4.Are self-driving cars just down the road?
5.Common sense and AI
6.One data point can beat big data
High Stakes
1.Transparency
2.Sleepwalking into surveillance
3.The psychology of getting users hooked
4.Safety and self-control
5.Fact or fake?
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
Gerd Gigerenzer is Director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam, Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and Partner of Simply Rational—the Institute for Decisions. He is the author of Calculated Risks, Gut Feelings, Risk Savvy, and How to Stay Smart in a Smart World (MIT Press).

About

STAYING IN CHARGE: How do we navigate a world populated by algorithms that beat us in chess, find us romantic partners, and tell us to “turn right in 500 yards”?

“Anyone worried about the age of AI will sleep better after reading this intelligent account” about the limits and dangers of technology (Publishers Weekly).

Doomsday prophets of technology predict that robots will take over the world, leaving humans behind in the dust. Tech industry boosters think replacing people with software might make the world a better place—while tech industry critics warn darkly about surveillance capitalism. Despite their differing views of the future, they all seem to agree: machines will soon do everything better than humans. In How to Stay Smart in a Smart World, Gerd Gigerenzer shows why that’s not true, and tells us how we can stay in charge in a world populated by algorithms.

Machines powered by artificial intelligence are good at some things (playing chess), but not others (life-and-death decisions, or anything involving uncertainty). Gigerenzer explains why algorithms often fail at finding us romantic partners (love is not chess), why self-driving cars fall prey to the Russian Tank Fallacy, and how judges and police rely increasingly on nontransparent “black box” algorithms to predict whether a criminal defendant will reoffend or show up in court. He invokes Black Mirror, considers the privacy paradox (people want privacy but give their data away), and explains that social media get us hooked by programming intermittent reinforcement in the form of the “like” button. We shouldn’t trust smart technology unconditionally, Gigerenzer tells us, but we shouldn’t fear it unthinkingly, either.

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Human Affair with AI
1.Is true love just a click away?
2.What AI is best at: The stable-world principle
3.Machines influence how we think of intelligence
4.Are self-driving cars just down the road?
5.Common sense and AI
6.One data point can beat big data
High Stakes
1.Transparency
2.Sleepwalking into surveillance
3.The psychology of getting users hooked
4.Safety and self-control
5.Fact or fake?
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index

Author

Gerd Gigerenzer is Director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam, Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and Partner of Simply Rational—the Institute for Decisions. He is the author of Calculated Risks, Gut Feelings, Risk Savvy, and How to Stay Smart in a Smart World (MIT Press).

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