Obsolete

Is AI a bubble or humanity’s last invention? An existing harm or an existential threat? Obsolete cuts through the hype and false binaries to answer all the AI questions you have, while raising some you probably aren’t prepared for.

The richest companies in history are racing to build a machine that replaces human labor—all of it. And, as this provocative new book insists, the only surefire way they won’t succeed is if we stop them.

Many today don’t get further than seeing AI as a boondoggle—a new shiny object for techno-capitalists to sink their cash into as we barrel toward climate disaster. Obsolete takes those concerns seriously, but implores us to keep our eye on the ball: the attempt to render you obsolete.

The scale of their project has no real precedent. What we think of as big—the Gilded Age monopolies, the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program—doesn’t even come close to capturing its size. Almost none of us wants this vast transformation to succeed. Yet we’re letting it proceed virtually unabated. Why? Because we don’t know it’s happening, we don’t believe it will work, or we don’t think we can stop it. Obsolete takes on all three.

AI expert and journalist Garrison Lovely’s debut is a refreshing reset on an AI debate in which basically everyone is getting some big things wrong. With deep access to top researchers, advocates, and industry insiders, Obsolete offers a new way to think about the technology and a plan for deciding its future democratically.