Keen On

Whatever one thinks of the creative potential of AI, it’s definitely been great for metaphor makers. Yesterday, we had Shannon Vallor explaining why AI is a mirror of our social and political values. Today, Madhumita Murgia, the Financial Times’ Artificial Intelligence editor and author of CODE DEPENDENT, suggests that we are all living in the shadow of the economic perils and inequities AI. The metaphors of shadows and mirrors return us, of course, to Plato’s cave and Socrates’ invention of metaphor to define justice. Rather than rely on dusty old metaphors, perhaps AI offers an opportunity to get out of our (metaphorical) cave and stare directly into the sun. That said, CODE DEPENDENT, already short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, is a valuable addition to the deluge of new books about AI. Madhumita Murgia is the first Artificial Intelligence Editor of the Financial Times and has been writing about AI, for Wired and the FT, for over a decade. Born and raised in India, she studied biology and i