تخطي التنقل
AI Snake Oil
Book

AI Snake Oil

What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference

Princeton UP, 2024 المزيد...

Buy the book


Editorial Rating

9

getAbstract Rating

  • Analytical
  • Scientific
  • Eye Opening

Recommendation

It’s time to differentiate between AI’s real capacities and the overhyped promises of Big Tech, say Princeton University computer science professor Arvind Narayanan and PhD candidate Sayash Kapoor. Just as salesmen once sold snake oil as a “miracle cure” when, in reality, it had no medical benefits, people today are exaggerating AI’s potential. For instance, AI tools cannot give humanity perfect insight into future events — but they can lead to poor decision-making. Narayanan and Kapoor call on you to fight for the AI future you want, rather than accepting the future tech companies are trying to sell you.

Summary

Predictive AI’s abilities are vastly exaggerated.

Decision-makers, governments and companies are pushing to replace human decision-making with predictive AI analytics. There’s just one catch: AI tools don’t always work as advertised. For example, Medicare providers in the United States have started turning to predictive AI to estimate how long patients will spend in the hospital. However, these estimates are not always accurate and can undercut the quality of care patients receive. In one alarming case, an AI tool predicted that an 85-year-old would only need to spend 17 days in the hospital. The patient’s health insurance company, taking the prediction as fact, stopped funding treatment after that many days, even though the patient still couldn’t walk without assistance and remained in extreme pain.

False promises about the potential of AI to make accurate predictions abound. For example, both Scientific American and Axios published stories touting a 2023 paper that contained the false assertion that AI could predict future hit songs with nearly 100% accuracy. However, the study’s results...

About the Authors

Arvind Narayanan is the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy and a professor of computer science at Princeton. Sayash Kapoor is a PhD candidate with the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University.


Comment on this summary

More on this topic

Related Skills

التمويلات المؤسسية
Discover AI Use Cases
Drive AI Transformation
ريادة الأعمال
القيادة التنفيذية
الموارد البشرية
القيادة
Leverage AI for Business Strategy
Leverage AI for Finance
Leverage AI for HR
Leverage AI for Leadership
Leverage AI for Management
Leverage AI for Marketing
Leverage AI for Product Development
Leverage AI for Sales
Leverage AI in Your Daily Tasks
اتخذ قرارات جيدة
الإدارة
التسويق
الإنتاج واللوجستيات
المبيعات
Use AI for Production & Supply Chain
مهارات مكان العمل
Understand Agentic AI
Use AI for Order ETA Prediction
Use AI for Market Analysis
Use AI for Disruption Monitoring
Use AI for Financial Forecasting
Discover AI Use Cases in the Pharmaceutical Industry
Use AI for Demand Forecasting
Use AI for Workforce Planning
Use AI for Data Analysis
Use AI for Fraud Detection
Discover AI Use Cases in the Finance Industry
Discover AI Use Cases in the Healthcare Industry
Discover AI Use Cases in the Insurance Industry
Understand AI Impact on Business and Economy
Understand AI Ethical Impact
AI Transformation
Measure AI Business Impact
Understand AI
Use AI for Decision Support
Use AI to Generate Marketing Content
Use AI for Predictive Maintenance
Understand AI Impact on Work
Understand AI Capabilities and Limits
Discover AI Use Cases in the Media and Entertainment Industry
Use AI Ethically as a Leader
Understand AI Risks
Use AI for Generating Ideas
Discover AI Use Cases in the Public Sector
Use AI for Risk Assessment
Use AI for Sales Forecasting
Use AI for Credit Scoring
Understand AI Impact on Learning and Cognition
Use AI for Risk Modeling
Understand AI Societal Impact
استخدام الذكاء الاصطناعي بشكل أخلاقي
Understand Generative AI