The AI Matrix

This book cuts through the hype surrounding artificial intelligence to reveal how profit motives, distorted tech narratives and geopolitical competition shape its evolution. Exposing common blind spots in public discourse, it challenges the myth of lab-driven innovation and technological imperatives, offering a powerful lens on the interplay between political and corporate power. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand who truly benefits from the AI revolution and who bears its costs.

-- Cornelia Woll, Professor of International Political Economy and President of the Hertie School, Berlin

A much needed, well-researched guide to help us cut through hype and hysteria and understand the high stakes gambles around AI.

-- Marietje Schaake, columnist, Financial Times

Jampacked with novel insights, this visionary book exposes how political rivalry, profit-seeking, and technological hype are combining to produce highly uneven consequences of AI for people and the planet. It compellingly shows why a balanced and nuanced understanding of AI’s economic benefits and harms is vital to achieving just and sustainable global governance.

-- Peter Dauvergne, Professor of International Relations, University of British Columbia

Finally, a readable takedown of the inevitability of AI! Chockful of convincing analysis, The AI Matrix helps us see why a potentially transformative technology is instead following old cultural scripts and replicating geopolitical patterns. The book contests the myths that underlie the spread of panicky AI hype and the unprecedented boom in its investment, myths about the novelty of the AI summer, its overnight market penetration, and whether its adoption promises to boost output or just redistribute it. Reading The AI Matrix is like walking with a knowledgeable guide holding a comprehensive map to a new and sometimes bewildering world: by the end, you might be apprehensive or even outraged, but you are also a bit smarter, acutely aware of what’s at stake, and most definitely grateful for the experience.

-- Allison Pugh, Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins Univer