I’m frequently asked if I can recommend some books for the non-technical reader.
Whether you want to develop your knowledge of AI and its impact on our lives, or to understand why I keep going on about data privacy, there are some excellent popular science books these days that delve into these topics. These are my top picks.
Hello World by Hannah Fry
This is always my first recommendation to non-technical readers who want to understand AI, because you can’t understand today’s AI without a basic grasp of algorithms more broadly. This is a clear, readable introduction to how algorithms work, and how they shape the modern world. If you’re new to thinking about the impact of technology, this is a great starting point. Although it’s not an “ethics book”, it includes ethical angles, and more importantly will give beginners the understanding they need to get more from other books in this list.
Code Dependent by Madhumita Murgia
A truly global perspective on AI’s influence, this book goes beyond the end user perspective – Chapter 1 opens with a data labelling facility in Nairobi, and Murgia’s interviewees include doctors and lawyers, as well as technologists.
Privacy is Power by Carissa Véliz
This is a quick, readable introduction to surveillance capitalism, and why you might want to opt out of its clutches. If you’re not familiar with the term, surveillance capitalism refers to the economic system whereby our behaviour is mined for value and used for profit (e.g. through targeted advertising).
Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil
This book is a catalogue of AI errors, across a range of areas. O’Neil is a mathematician, and brings her extensive knowledge to challenge the idea that maths and data science are impartial and infallible.
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
This one is a classic for a reason, as it demonstrates the many ways women have been systematically excluded from scientific research and product development over the years. Although it’s focused exclusively on women, it’s easy to draw analogous conclusions for the omission of data related to people of various ethnicities, LGBTQ+ identities, socioeconomic status, etc. It’s also an interesting counterpoint to the privacy narratives, highlighting how a lack of representative data can be just as problematic as excessive and exploitative data collection.
Further recommendations
Technically Wrong by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
Written by a designer, this book takes a look at the whole ecosystem of technical products, from the choices available to us when we fill out a form online, through to algorithmic bias (although the latter is more thoroughly covered elsewhere).
The Fight for Privacy by Danielle Keats Citron
Citron makes the case for a legal concept of ‘intimate privacy’ (covering everything from sex and healthcare, to voting behaviour) and why we need space to live out of sight in order to have a functional civic society.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff
This one is a seriously hefty book, but worth it if you want to get into the details of how we got to where we are today. Zuboff coined the phrase ‘surveillance capitalism’, she is very technical in her definitions and thorough in her historical analysis.
Your Face Belongs to Us by Kashmir Hill
Unlike most of the other books on this list, this one focuses on diving deep into one specific technology, and one company that’s making a killing from it – namely, Clearview AI and facial recognition.
You might also like…
The following are a few I haven’t managed to get my hands on yet (a few of which I have reserved at my local library). I’ll update this post with summaries when I’ve read them, but these are all authors I respect, and books I expect to be excellent:
Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble
Race after Technology by Ruha Benjamin
More than a Glitch by Meredith Broussard
Unmasking AI by Joy Buolamwini
Human Rights, Robot Wrongs by Susie Alegre
This post contains an affiliate links to our Bookshop.org store front. These links help to support our site by way of a small commission, but all of these books are also available elsewhere.