I requested this book from NetGalley when I saw it on the Women's Prize Longlist and discovered it wouldn't be coming out until the end of March, after the shortlist was announced. I didn't get this finished by the time the shortlist was announced but I had started it by that point.

This book looks at AI and what exactly it does, both in terms of the technology it uses, but also how it is built in the first place. It is an extremely topical book and I commend the author on already keeping an eye on the AI technology before it started being used all over the place. Murgia does a really good job at not only looking at the way AI can harm society negatively, through loss of privacy for example, but also how it can benefit society (medical situations) but only if it is used alongside human skill. When AI works to people's benefit is when it is used to give people a second opinion, rather than replacing people/workers altogether.

Murgia travels all around the world as the use of AI, and especially the creation of it, doesn't just happen in the Global North. She looks at how it gets trained, who does the training and what kind of situation the trainers themselves are in (in terms of pay and working conditions). And, as expected, there is exploitation going on in the creation of it, but also in the use of it. And this book is great at talking about the wider implications on relying on a computer trained by humans to be impartial or objective.

4.5 stars!

this is a very accessible read.I found this book fascinating.Very impressive way of presenting the information.  I would recommend this book!

This for me is the perfect example of non-fiction: engaging, accessible, and takes a measured look at a topic all too often seen as either a miracle technology *or* the precursor to the downfall of humanity. By looking at individuals' stories, Murgia highlights the human realities of engaging with AI, some of which are good, some of which are bad, all of which are fascinating.

Read as was shortlisted for the 2024 Women's Prize for Non Fiction...I can understand why.

A timely eye opening insight into the different opportunities & challenges that AI brings to our lives, written by a truely informed FT AI lead. How can the multi million tech companies have so much power on our international futures? Sets out the case for the need to prevent ongoing perpetuation of the unconscious bias on further marginalisation.. An informative, challenging read, if you take time to reflect on the deeper meaning. Each chaper reads like a vignette of AI experiences on normal people's daily lived experiences.

Could this be the winner for the Women's Prize first Non Fiction Award?

This is a highly topical and quite interesting non-fiction on artificial intelligence and the many ways its development has been impacting all kinds of people around the world. Each chapter touches on a different facet of AI, with the latter half focusing on generative AI, building up to a final chapter on ChatGPT and its use over the past couple of years. The crux of this book is that the development and training of all AI tools has been unethical so far - while some people come at it with the best intentions, employees in underdeveloped countries are underpaid and lack workers' rights under the guise of being "lifted out of poverty" by Big Tech; many tech bros developing these technologies don't care that much about the ethics of it all; and generally we need to be careful how we use AI mindlessly.

Overall I found this book interesting and easy to understand. The chapters were gripping and I highlighted quite a lot of passages and sources to come back to and read more on. The author has made her points very digestible, although sometimes I felt they lacked a bit of nuance, or were a little obvious. In particular in the first half I felt the author was a little patronising towards workers, almost saying that they had no idea what their skills were going towards not because of a lack of transparency but just more so "just because". Some of her points were a little underdeveloped but overall still an insightful read that has both caused existential dread and given me some food for thought.

I would recommend this book if you're after a book on the very current topic of artificial intelligence - I particularly liked that it was so up to date. If you're wondering how AI is trained, who is behind it, and the current state of AI ethics, this is the book for you. I would also recommend picking up different books on the topic for a well-rounded opinion on these issues.

Thank you to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I discovered this wonderful book thanks to the inaugural Women's Prize for Non-Fiction and I am delighted to see that it has now been shortlisted for the prize. It's easy to see why, since Madhumita Murgia addresses such current and important topics in an incredibly accessible way.

What I particularly appreciated about Code Dependent was the focus on the human stories behind the technology and that this took us all across the world to visit a whole range of diverse groups. These stories emphasised just how far the tentacles of artificial intelligence are spreading and it was thought-provoking to read about the dangers and inequalities inherent in this. Murgia takes the reader in unexpected directions and revealed a lot that I didn't know about this area.

The book also had direct personal relevance. I work as a translator and my job has most certainly been affected by the rise of language learning models, neural machine translation and artificial intelligence. At times, I have felt quite powerless as more and more clients have switched to "good enough" machine translation. Reading this book was one step I decided to take to educate myself further about how this technology works, together with its potential benefits and limitations. Having read the book I feel better equipped to argue my case for the advantages of "human" translation.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, advance copy of Code Dependent in exchange for an honest review.

It seems so obvious that States all over the world should already legislate about AI so that it remains a great tool and not a threat, yet this book was written to show how far we are from reaching a peaceful ground. I must say that I learned a lot about aspects in which AI is used in very weird and precise ways in countries such as Kenya or Argentina, where it controls more than just some aspects of the people’s work, but has a hold on bodies and spirits. The essay feels very documented, and as a reader I felt very challenged to look around me and watch how little things are changing in the direction of technology to the detriment of (obviously) the poorer classes. On a day-to-day basis, we often hear about how artists’ existences are threatened by AI since it feeds itself on pre-existing works, we hear about Chat GPT, deepfake, or we read sci-fi where robots get too much of a conscience. But here, the examples are more mundane and diverse, impacting the daily life of a plethora of workers. I found the part about health the most dreadful, about how AI has made its ways into medical exams and diagnosis, I believe patients should definitely be treated by fleshed out doctors. However, I know that Madhumita Murgia is an expert and I will not question her work, but I thought it lacked a bit of nuance and positivity; just regarding health again, AI seem to do wonders in some domains such as cellular biology. I believe that this essay is a great milestone in the discussion about such a current topic, but maybe too pessimistic to be considered the only way to tackle it. It is a good instructive read, but maybe overly incriminating?

This is a very interesting and thought provoking read about the use of AI across a range of different topics. I enjoyed how it was divided up into different topics au ch as identity, body etc and thought the use of real people was a great way to keep the technical details relevant and relatable.
Lots of interesting ideas are discussed and I enjoyed the focus of good and bad aspects. It is clearly well researched and highlights the need for greater understanding from the general public and also the need for better regulation as this technology continues to grow and evolve.

I was worried that this #womensprize for NF long lister would be a bit dry but it wasn‘t. (I‘d tried to start Vulture Capitalism which I found difficult to get into so thought this may be the same). This held my interest throughout.

The author uses real-life people and their stories to discuss the impact of AI, both good and bad, which makes it an interesting and accessible read.

Covering areas such as facial recognition, health apps and crime statistics I‘d recommend it.

A book on the human toil of AI, from the everyday workers of Uber to migrant worker across the world endlessly teaching AI.

This book is beautifully researched and well written. It really teaches what AI is and what it isn't, how it works why it perhaps isn't as scary as we think or how powerful it could be in the wrong hands.

Honestly everyone who has heard of AI should read this book!

A stunner of a book that goes into the dangers of AI and how AI has become a digital Frankenstein's monster. Madhumita Murgia's "Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI" divides the book into chapters that explore the effects of AI on underrepresented people: data miners, deep fake victims, shift workers, the disenfranchised, the poor, children, minority populations. etc. She methodically details how uses of AI have contributed to what she terms data colonialism--"human lives converted into continuous streams of data.” Corporations will often use the talents of "low-wage workers" to data mine and do the work needed for these AI programs to prosper. However, this is another form of exploitation as the companies hire vulnerable people (usually refugees or immigrants) who often have no other source of income. It’s maddening to read Murgia’s interviews with these workers, and how they are treated by the companies who profit so much from their work. As Murgia writes, “Data workers are the invaluable human links in the global AI supply chain.”

Murgia shows us how uber drivers, doctors, researchers, teenagers, and mothers struggle with and are often harmed by AI and its uses. We read about women who are stalked and harassed by men who use their images as part of pornographic deep fakes. Delivery drivers who are cheated and underpaid. Young girls in an impoverished part of Argentina who are scanned into databases because they are allegedly at risk for teenage pregnancy (a faulty and another cruel use of AI). We see young immigrant boys treated as criminals by programs that use AI. Again and again, Murgia highlights how AI has become so prevalent in our society, and how it has become a tool for corporations. As Murgia writes in the book, corporations now have more power than governments.

If there's a tiny drawback to the book, it's that the epilogue is a bit too long, as it makes points Murgia already covered. By the end of the epilogue, Murgia has made her case and she leaves us with ten important questions. The book is a warning to all of us who don’t pay attention to the dangers because we think it won’t impact us. It has and it will. This book is essential reading for today’s world.

As someone currently working and wanting to continue my studies in data, this book is a life changer. I learned so much about what goes behind the rapid development of AI, the people who are exploited and became victims because of it, and the people who are trying to fight the system. When I started studying the field, it seems like a very interesting field to be in and I'm still hopeful about this technology's potential to help and benefit a lot of people. However, especially recently, I became aware of how much this technology instead of being used to help people, it's used for unethical and malicious purposes and as an ordinary citizen, I know how easy it is to become hopeless in the "black box" system and algorithms. So while reading this book, I felt like I have those thoughts validated and I learned even more in detail about the dangerousness of this technology. It definitely changed my perspectives on a lot of things, and now I am aware of the importance of staying vigilant and critical towards the development of this technology.

I think this book is such a great starter for AI literacy. It's informative, engaging and easy to read, and I believe that even if you don't have any knowledge on AI whatsoever, this book will still be easy to pick up and read. The author is really good at connecting the threads between the people she interviews and at creating a sense of urgency in this topic.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher! I will be picking up a copy to keep forever and to recommend to friends in the field.

Code Dependent is an investigation into the human side of AI: the ordinary, non-Silicon Valley people affected by and involved in areas relating to artificial intelligence. Journalist Madhumita Murgia tells the stories of people and communities impacted by AI from people labelling AI training data to people whose lives are changed by the decisions of AI systems or having deep fake videos made of them. Not everything is negative: there's also healthcare benefits, if only these technologies can be made freely available and in places that most need them. And as the book moves towards the ending, Murgia argues that these stories give us principles we should consider going forward to ensure AI works for ordinary people, not the other way around.

Notably, this book focuses on the human side of technology, rather than the technological side, and foregrounds the experiences of people and the complexity of AI's role. Even for areas that are often discussed in other books, such as predictive policing, this book offers examples I've not seen before and direct interviews with people affected, not something all technology books have. At the same time, it does provide an accessible description of a lot of AI-related technologies; for example, it's the first time I've seen—as someone who reads a lot about AI—a simple explanation of what a 'transformer' is and why it has been so important for generative AI. This combination makes Code Dependent useful both for people who do read tech books, but are interested in human stories rather than the same talking points, and people who are newer to the topic and would like a way in that focuses on people.

Sometimes I found the framing or phrasing a bit simplistic or lacking nuance and complexity, but generally, it was an accessible book about AI that tells stories rather than just facts, and takes areas we might have heard or read plenty about and shows specific people's lives in relation to these topics. The parting message about religions coming together to discuss AI was not where I expected the book to go and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that being the conclusion (given that high up people in a religion aren't really 'ordinary people' necessarily), but I do appreciate that this was a book about AI that had a lot of things I'd not read about before, or at least not in this form.

Given the current hype and fear around AI, Code Dependent is likely to become a much-talked-about book, offering people a different way in to reading and thinking about artificial intelligence and what it means for our lives.