Eleanor Drage, a senior research fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, argues in her new book that to thrive alongside artificial intelligence, humans must recognise AI’s “humanity”. She contends that AI is the product of human labour in silicon and quartz mines, microchip factories and data labelling centres, and that understanding this helps citizens wrest power from tech companies.
Critiquing Big Tech
Drage debunks the Silicon Valley narrative that AI will either save humanity or destroy it. She argues convincingly that big tech cannot deliver utopian promises while chasing profit and power, and that the cultural obsession with AI apocalypse distracts from practical safety measures such as citizen control over data and regulation. She also criticises AI-powered recruitment and law enforcement, noting how algorithms perpetuate biases and how tech giants have become too big to care about ethics.
Shortcomings in the Book
Despite intellectual heft, Drage’s arguments sometimes feel rushed. For instance, she claims that work is shifting from artists to data labellers, but it is unclear that artists will become redundant. She dismisses unconscious bias as merely taking the perpetrator’s perspective, which the reviewer finds disappointing given the importance of diversity. The book’s title promises an alternative vision, but the ethical AI projects she describes—such as an app for discussing FGM in India and a chatbot to help Māori women quit smoking—are underwhelming, leaving the reviewer questioning what value AI adds given its environmental impact and exploitative supply chains.
Utopian Process
Drage describes a toolkit she co-designed to help AI companies act ethically as a “cornerstone of utopianism,” focusing on the process of building a fairer world. However, the book does not mention AI’s potential in drug discovery or disease detection, leaving the question “what if we got AI right?” largely unanswered.
