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The AI Con

How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want

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Brought to you by Penguin.

A smart, incisive take-down of the bogus claims being made about so-called ‘artificial intelligence’, exposing the real harm these technologies do to our jobs, health, society and environment, who stands to gain from them, and how to fight back.

Is AI going to take over the world? Have scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to replace all our jobs, even creative ones, like doctors, teachers and care-workers? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything?

The answers to these questions, as the expert authors of The AI Con make clear, are 'no', 'they wish', 'LOL', and 'definitely not'. In fact, these fears are all symptoms of the hype being used by tech corporations to justify data theft, motivate surveillance capitalism, and devalue human creativity so they can replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. Meanwhile, across healthcare, education, media, government and law-enforcement, ‘AI’ products are already being introduced that are unreliable, ineffective, unjust and dangerous.

Packed with real-world examples, pithy arguments and expert insights, The AI Con arms you to spot AI hype in all its guises, expose the exploitation and power-grabs it aims to hide, and push back against it at work and in your daily life.

© Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Business Ethics Computer Science Corruption & Misconduct History & Culture Machine Theory & Artificial Intelligence Politics & Government Technology & Society Workplace & Organisational Behavior Technology Health Care Government Leadership Capitalism

Critic reviews

The blizzard of excitement, misinformation and pure hype around AI has driven many of us to want an honest guide to both its promises and its limitations as well as its bizarre history. If, like me, you’re one of those many, you need to read this book. It’s clear, objective and comprehensible. It’s essential reading (Brian Eno)
The AI Con takes the thunder out of the dark cloud in our technological future. I am so grateful for the reality check, in Emily’s and Alex’s inimitable style. A must-read for those who don’t want to believe the hype (Aleks Krotoski, presenter of The Digital Human)
A powerful antidote to the AI hype that dominates tech writing today. The authors show that the development of modern labour saving technologies is not neutral. Instead, these technologies will serve to deepen existing inequalities, and further 'enshittify' life and work for the vast majority of people (Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism)
A must-read. Drs. Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender cut through the dizzying hype to provide the clearest picture yet of what AI is, what it is not, and why none of us need to accept it being shoved down our throats (Timnit Gebru, Founder and Executive Director at The Distributed AI Research Institute)
A book to inoculate your mind against Big Tech's AI utopian hype and the resulting dystopian dread (Yanis Varoufakis)
Artificial intelligence is going to reshape our economy and society. And we'd all better get used to it, right? Wrong, say the authors of this incredible book. This is a truly eye-opening book that will be an indispensable 'field manual' for those who want to fight for a more humane economy and a better society (Ha-Joon Chang, author of Economics: The User's Guide and Edible Economics)
A fascinating and thought-provoking analysis of one of the most charged debates in the world (Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus)
Bender and Hanna write with absolute authority and incredible wit and verve. Come for the piercing observations; leave with the tools to slice your way through the absurdist narratives that prop up the AI industry and to hold it accountable (Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI)
A powerful and timely deep dive into what the AI hype cycle is REALLY about, why it's bound to crash, and what we can all do to protect ourselves from it. An absolute must-read! (Karla Ortiz, artist and artist activist)
With irreverence and razor-sharp analysis, Bender and Hanna show how tech giants are using AI as a cover for their real agenda. This isn’t just about debunking myths – it’s about reclaiming control over the future (Ruha Benjamin, author of Viral Justice)
All stars
Most relevant
The recording quality is bad. Makes enjoying the audiobook difficult. There should at least be a required level of audio quality.

Dreadful recording quality

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The AI Con is a great book that really helped me see through all the AI hype. I’m a startup guy, and I had jumped into a few AI projects just because it felt like everyone else was doing it and I didn’t want to miss out. After reading this, I realized I was chasing hype, not real value, and decided to drop those projects. Thanks for helping me stay grounded.

A great book to see through all the AI hype

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I believe the current AI tech will be a net negative to humanity so I was predisposed to agree with this book. I did agree with it and it gave me a wider lens and provided me with better arguments to deploy. I was hoping I could recommend this book to my AI advocating friends but I don’t feel they would find it compelling. Maybe that’s an unfair criticism but it’s why I only gave 4/5. I found the performance somewhat grating. The delivery had an air of aloof smugness that undermined the content.

Solid content

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Some super interesting points and I learnt a lot even as an AI Technician. I heard a different viewpoint and look forward to hopefully listening to a follow up book. I’m politically neutral so was somewhat alarmed by the overt far left politics in the book.

Some super information and interesting view points, but too much far left political propaganda.

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The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want by Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender is a deeply worthwhile and timely examination of how AI systems can reinforce inequality, amplify structural bias, and perpetuate cycles of disadvantage, often under the guise of neutrality and progress.

The authors present a compelling collection of real-world examples showing how algorithmic systems disproportionately harm vulnerable populations, particularly those already affected by poverty, geography, or ethnic profiling. One of the book’s greatest strengths is its clear explanation of how flawed or disconnected data points, such as credit scores, are routinely repurposed to make consequential decisions in entirely unrelated domains, including healthcare access and social services. These practices create self-reinforcing feedback loops, where individuals are further marginalised by systems that claim objectivity but, in fact, encode historical inequities.

What makes this book especially effective is its accessibility. Hanna and Bender explain complex technical and social concepts in a way that is both engaging and easy to understand, without oversimplifying the seriousness of the issues. They also employ humour judiciously, not to trivialise harm, but to expose the absurdity of inflated claims made by AI proponents. Their argument that humour and ridicule can serve as legitimate tools of resistance against technological hype is both refreshing and persuasive.

One area that could have benefited from deeper exploration is regulatory capture. While the book touches on power asymmetries, recent developments involving major AI firms such as Meta and Anthropic underscore how regulatory frameworks can be shaped to entrench incumbents and raise barriers to new entrants. This omission does not diminish the book’s overall value, but it leaves room for further analysis.

Overall, this is an important and highly recommended read for both newcomers and those already familiar with AI. It focuses not on technical minutiae, but on the human consequences of technological deployment: where the true stakes lie.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

A Sharp, Humane Takedown of AI Hype Grounded in Real-World Consequences

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