STEVE JOHNSON recommends a beautiful album of songs that celebrate summer, from May Day onwards
More Than a Glitch; Confronting Race, Gender and Ability Bias in Tech
by Meredith Broussard, MIT Press, £25
WE live in a period of hype and hysteria about artificial intelligence.
Big Tech companies with proprietary systems send shivers down our necks with hints about “sentience” and “systems more intelligent than humans” or “existential threats.” Lawyers and philosophers mutter about “robot rights,” economic reports predict huge job losses. Politicians talk nervously about meetings and safeguards or alternatively enthuse about a golden age of economic boom.
Broussard subscribes to none of this hype or hysteria, which she rightly characterises as a smokescreen hiding the real issues.
In the second and final part of his article MIKE SCOTT posits that if we don’t control AI while we’ve got the chance, we could be signing the death warrant for our children and grandchildren
MIKE SCOTT assesses the AI threat to jobs in the first of a pair of articles on the problems it poses
What’s behind the stubborn gender gap in Stem disciplines ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT in their column Science and Society
NICOLA SARAH HAWKINS explains how an under-regulated introduction of AI into education is already exacerbating inequalities


