• Vampire AI
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Vampire AI

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AI is sold to us as neutral, inevitable and transformative, but whose interests does it truly serve? Drawing on Marx’s image of capital as a vampire – viciously sucking in living labour – this book...
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  • April 20, 2027
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AI is sold to us as neutral, inevitable and transformative, but whose interests does it truly serve?

Drawing on Marx’s image of capital as a vampire – viciously sucking in living labour – this book shows how AI is deeply entangled with capitalism. From the optimisation choices that embed capitalist ethos within, to the platforms that operationalise bad low-paid work, the book demystifies how AI shapes everyday life.

Vampire AI asks what it would mean to redirect the technology to collective ends, serving people rather than capital. The book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand and challenge the political economy of artificial intelligence.

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Price: $44.95
Pages: 240
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Imprint: Bristol University Press
Publication Date: April 20, 2027
ISBN: 9781529260410
Format: Paperback
BISACs: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Technology Studies, Digital and information technologies: social and ethical aspects, COMPUTERS / Social Aspects, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Economy, Impact of science and technology on society, Far-left political ideologies and movements, Ethical issues: scientific, technological and medical developments, Critical theory
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'Vampire AI stands out from other Marxist analyses of AI by virtue of its theoretical clarity and eminent readability. Rarely has Marx’s Gothic heritage been put to such good use as in this lucid account what it will take to drive a stake through the undead heart of AI capitalism--a vital read for vampire-hunters everywhere, whether striking against the automated degradation of work, sabotaging the theft of art or blocking data centre necropoles'. Nick Dyer-Witherford, University of Western Ontario

'This is the best introduction to AI for non-specialists available anywhere. This book sheds essential light on the obscure corners of today’s most important technologies. Are machines intelligent? (No.) Can they think? (No.) And – most importantly – find out how powerful interests defraud the public and the state, and hide the exploitation of peoples and the Earth behind a veil of technology-driven misinformation'. Alfredo Saad-Filho, Queen's University Belfast

'A vital, unsparing critique of the contemporary AI paradigm. In its sobering analysis, Vampire AI reveals how AI’s extractive logic is propagated and normalized through institutions, norms and social relations to reorganize labor and power – essential reading for understanding the political economy of AI'. Madalina Busuioc, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Deepak P is Associate Professor in Artificial Intelligence at Queen’s University Belfast and Adjunct Faculty Member at Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Part I: The Backdrop

Chapter 1: The Many AIs: History of a Curious Technology

Chapter 2: Capital as Technological Vampirism

Chapter 3: AI vis-a-vis Capital: AI’s history as Vampiric Advance

Part II: The Phenomenon

Chapter 4: Vampire in the AI Design Framework

Chapter 5: Vampire in AI’s Data-driven Paradigm

Chapter 6: Vampire in AI’s Statistical Model Design Choices

Chapter 7: Abstractions and Uniformisation

Part III: The Fallouts

Chapter 8: The Squeeze: How Vampire AI dishes out Bad Work and Low Wages

Chapter 9: The Spread: The AI-fication of Everything

Chapter 10: The Suppression: The everyday annihilation of Resistance

Part IV: The Future

Chapter 11: The World of AI Red Herrings

Chapter 12: What is to be done?