Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works for Us

How Big Tech is taking advantage of us, how AI is making it worse, and how we can create a thriving, AI-positive world.

On balance, will AI help humanity or harm it? AI could revolutionize science, medicine, and technology, and deliver us a world of abundance and better health. Or it could be a disaster, leading to the downfall of democracy, or even our extinction. In Taming Silicon Valley, Gary Marcus, one of the most trusted voices in AI, explains that we still have a choice. And that the decisions we make now about AI will shape our next century. In this short but powerful manifesto, Marcus explains how Big Tech is taking advantage of us, how AI could make things much worse, and, most importantly, what we can do to safeguard our democracy, our society, and our future.

Marcus explains the potential--and potential risks--of AI in the clearest possible terms and how Big Tech has effectively captured policymakers. He begins by laying out what is lacking in current AI, what the greatest risks of AI are, and how Big Tech has been playing both the public and the government, before digging into why the US government has thus far been ineffective at reining in Big Tech. He then offers real tools for readers, including eight suggestions for what a coherent AI policy should like--from data rights to layered AI oversight to meaningful tax reform--and closes with how ordinary citizens can push for what is so desperately needed.

Taming Silicon Valley is both a primer on how AI has gotten to its problematic present state and a book of activism in the tradition of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book and Thomas Paine's Common Sense. It is a deeply important book for our perilous historical moment that every concerned citizen must read.

Author: Gary F. Marcus
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 09/24/2024
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Paperback
ISBN: 9780262551069

About the Author
Gary F. Marcus is a scientist, best-selling author, and was Founder and CEO Geometric.AI, a machine learning company that was acquired by Uber. He is well-known for his challenges to contemporary AI and for his research in human language development and cognitive neuroscience. An Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU, he is the author of five books, including, The Algebraic Mind, Kluge, The Birth of the Mind, and the New York Times bestseller Guitar Zero, and well-known for his public appearances at places like Davos and TED, and for his recent testimony at the US Senate. His most recent book Rebooting AI, with Ernest Davis, is one of Forbes's seven Must-Read Books in AI.