The AI Con by Emily Bender & Alex Hanna

The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna is essential reading because it masterfully cuts through corporate marketing to reveal how "artificial intelligence" is often just a misleading label designed to concentrate power and wealth. Written by a linguist and a sociologist, this book arms readers with sharp, witty, and academically rigorous tools to spot overblown tech claims and evaluate the real-world harm generative tools cause to labor, human creativity, critical thinking, and the environment. Instead of getting lost in sci-fi fantasies of future super-intelligence, Bender and Hanna anchor the reader in present-day accountability. They provide a practical framework of questions to help educators, workers, and everyday citizens actively push back against manipulative tech narratives and advocate for a equitable future.