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Humans of AI : understanding the people behind the machines
Aevo, University of Toronto Press - 2025 - 1 volume (xiii, 338 pages)
Humans of AI pulls back the curtain on the hidden labor, practices, and philosophies that shape artificial intelligence, revealing the deeply human forces behind this seemingly autonomous technology. Through immersive fieldwork and storytelling, anthropologist Joseph Wilson introduces readers to the workers, thinkers, and creators who make AI possible. Not a day goes by without breathless commentary on the increasing power of artificial intelligence (AI). Hype flows from the sages of Silicon
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Valley. But who is behind the evolution of this technology, and how does it really work? In Humans of AI, anthropologist Joseph Wilson details his efforts to understand the customs and culture of AI development. Wilson introduces readers to the hidden world of AI -- behind the doors of chip design labs, coding bootcamps, and organizations teaching AI to speak dozens of languages. He meets philosophers envisioning a future without disease or death, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who warns of AI's existential risks, and ghost workers whose invisible labor powers the world's biggest tech platforms. He also speaks with writers, artists, and developers wrestling with the promise and peril of AI to find out what they really think of ChatGPT. Wilson's empathetic and thoughtful investigation provides readers a close-up view of how AI is actually made. Humans of AI is an indispensable reminder that the work of AI is not miraculous or magical, but fundamentally human.
0. The anthropologist. Who is AI?. Making the strange familiar. The human stack. 1. The pioneers. Wagon wheel. The imitation frame. The genealogy of an idea. The metaphor is the message. My fair lady. I compute therefore I am. It is not my aim to shock you. Weird brain stuff. AI as a cultural concept. 2. The software developers. A jumble of linear algebra. Knowing how things work. But is it science?. Alchemy. Flow. Pythonistas. The worst thing to happen to programming. There'll be something else next year. 3. The hardware engineers. Software counts from zero. We can't do that. The middle ground of firmware. How to hold a compass. Making sand think. Dress rehearsal. Bringup. 4. The entrepreneurs. Collision. This time it's different. Tell me a story. Grunt work. Vibe coding. Hyper growth. A chance to do good. 5. The ghost workers. How to work with real humans. Ghost work. You get that shock. The mechanical Turk. Edge cases. An advanced generalist. An existential crisis. 6. The content creators. Books3. Performance capture. Fair use. Data is the new what?. A gift economy. Glass sanctuary. People building things for people. 7. The volunteers. The pax project. The way you speak to the king. Right and relevant. The social life of data. No language left behind. Wise words. Mystery bot. 8. The linguists. Accountability. The voice of authority. Language is solved. Best words. The whiteboard huddle. I, scientist. Purification. 9. The rationalists. Do good better. What the universe wants. Living in the stars. Slouching toward utopia. Let us calculate. Behavioral engineering. Directing evolution - Doing intelligence. It's inevitable. 10. The believers. The AGI wars. Stochastic parrots. Hidden figures. I know a person when I talk to it. The empathy trap. Linguistic pareidolia. Imaginary friends. 11. The doomers. People are not nearly scared enough. Monkey's paw. Last days. A vast apocalyptic spiral. A dose of critihype. A civilized debate. The pause letter. 12. The immortalists. Memento mori. Spiritual machines. Should I feel guilty?. Better than the alternative. Brain upload. Who gets to be remembered. 13. The detractors. It's too hard. On trolleys. Ethics is really a discussion. Bad actors. There's bias and then there's bias. Opinions embedded in mathematics. Coding is a girly job. 14. The gap. We're very close. Behind the curtain. The trick. There's nothing artificial about artificial intelligence.
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