New Books in Artificial Intelligence

New Books in Artificial Intelligence

By Marshall PoeTechnology
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New Books in Artificial Intelligence episodes

  • Predicted: How AI Is Restructuring Social Life with Mona Sloane (U California Press, 2026)

    How AI is rewiring our social fabric—and how we can better shape our future.
     
    The age of AI is not what you think. Rather than ushering in a fourth Industrial Revolution, AI has become a crucial social infrastructure of everyday life. It's embedded in the tools, platforms, and systems that organize our most intimate lives and our interactions with the most fundamental institutions of society, from government agencies to banks and schools. In these linkages are embedded assumptions about who we are, what we can do, and where we belong.
     
    In Predicted: How AI Is Restructuring Social Life (U California Press, 2026), Mona Sloane offers a pragmatic framework for understanding these transformations around prediction, classification, and linearity, proposing that we think about AI as a social arrangement that we coproduce. Drawing on over a decade of empirical research and real-world examples, this book invites us to see AI for what it is: deeply social, deeply political, and open to change. Clear-eyed and provocative, Predicted is a call to reclaim deliberations about progress and innovation as a public good and to ensure that the futures we chart are the ones we choose—together.


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    41 min
  • Learning Under Algorithmic Conditions with Elizabeth de Freitas, Matthew X. Curinga, and Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

    What does it mean to learn when algorithms increasingly shape how knowledge is produced, organized, and interpreted? Editors Elizabeth de Freitas, Matthew X. Curinga, and Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román join Shreya Urvashi to talk about their book Learning Under Algorithmic Conditions (U Minnesota Press, 2026), a collection that examines how artificial intelligence and computational systems are changing education, cognition, and ideas of human intelligence. The editors discuss the complexities of algorithm, training data as curriculum, AI bias, and the concept of more-than-human learning. They also explore the relationship between contemporary technologies and colonial forms of reason, the limits of treating bias as a purely technical problem, and what happens to human agency as learning becomes increasingly entangled with algorithmic systems.


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    44 min
  • Will AI Make Human Labor Obsolete? with Garrison Lovely

    Today I’m speaking with Garrison Lovely, technology journalist and author of the new book, Obsolete: The AI Industry's Trillion Dollar Race to Replace Us — and How to Stop It (OR Books, 2026). Artificial intelligence is perhaps the most discussed and most misunderstood topic today. Even to the experts and captains of industry, the frontier large language models are essentially black boxes. AI poses many reasons to be both skeptical and optimistic, yet it also poses a fundamental threat to our current economic order and social contract. If AI succeeds, what will it mean for workers, consumers, and the huddled masses who do not own the multi-trillion dollar companies directing the global economy? Garrison Lovely has coined the term, Obsoleting Project to describe the goal of AI companies to build machines that outperform humans on nearly every task. It reimagines technology, not as a tool of efficiency, but rather as a tool that replaces labor full-stop. What happens to our society if they succeed? Garrison’s Obsolete is a fantastic round-up of the most important social and economic challenges posed by AI. I’m thrilled today to have Garrison on The Truth About Bullshit to understand a bit more about the Obsoleting Project.

    Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.


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    1 hr 17 min
  • Xiaochang Li, "Divination Engines: Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, and the Making of Algorithmic Culture" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

    Since the advent of computers, society has fantasized about conversing with machines. In Divination Engines: Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, and the Making of Algorithmic Culture

    (University of Chicago Press, 2026), Dr. Xiaochang Li shows readers how
    that dream both fueled the demand for data and set the stage for
    today’s generative AI. 

    With original research and clear

    explanations, Dr. Li elucidates the origins of what’s
    known as natural language processing (NLP) and the heated
    twentieth-century debates between computer scientists, linguists, and
    communication engineers that shaped today’s technology. Starting with
    early devices that recorded, analyzed, and attempted to interpret human
    speech, she demonstrates
    how computer speech recognition, particularly efforts led by Bell Labs
    and IBM, advanced technology by deemphasizing linguistic meaning in
    favor of statistical prediction. In other words, researchers gradually
    abandoned systems that sought to understand human language, opting
    instead for work-arounds
    that simply predicted patterns in speech and text data. That solution
    became incredibly and surprisingly adaptable. As Dr. Li reveals,
    transforming linguistic questions into engineering ones ushered in the
    routine operation of search engines, spam filters, and the varied
    content sorting and recommendation mechanisms that regulate the access,
    circulation, and legitimacy of information across every platform. But
    this has all come at the cost of forever requiring copious and
    ever-growing amounts of new data.

    At its core, Divination Engines

    illuminates how the artifacts of human communication—speech, text, and
    images—have become both the fodder for and products of computers. This
    connection between communication and computation, Li shows, has given
    rise to data-driven analytics, machine learning, and today’s algorithmic
    culture.

    This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book

    focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
    negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
    analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
    Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 


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    39 min
  • Seth C. Lewis, Rodrigo Zamith, and Tomás Dodds, "Journalism in the Age of AI: From Acceleration to Reimagination" (Polity, 2027)

    What if AI’s biggest impact on journalism isn’t replacing journalists, but forcing us to rethink what journalism is for?

    In this episode, Joanne Kuai speaks with Seth C. Lewis, Rodrigo Zamith, and Tomás Dodds, authors of Journalism in the Age of AI: From Acceleration to Reimagination (Polity, 2027).

    For decades, journalism has been caught on a “hamster wheel” of

    acceleration: producing more stories, for more platforms, with fewer
    resources. AI promises even greater efficiency, but is doing more with
    less really what journalism needs?

    Lewis, Zamith, and Dodds argue

    that the current AI moment offers something more consequential: an
    opportunity to reimagine journalism itself. The conversation explores
    what remains distinctly human about journalism when machines can
    increasingly perform creative and cognitive tasks; how dependence on AI
    companies and digital infrastructure is reshaping media power; what AI
    means for journalism education and human judgement; and whether
    journalism can harness these technologies in ways that strengthen,
    rather than erode, its democratic purpose.

    The conversation also raises a more fundamental question: is preserving journalism as an institution the goal, or should we rethink how society meets its information needs altogether?

    Journalism in the Age of AI is available open access. Learn more and access the book here.

    About the authors

    Seth C. Lewis is the

    inaugural Elcan Jefferson Scholars Foundation Distinguished Professor of
    Artificial Intelligence and Media Studies at the University of
    Virginia. Previously, he was the founding holder of the Shirley Papé
    Chair in Emerging Media and Director of Journalism at the University of
    Oregon. In his research, Lewis examines the social implications of
    emerging technologies and their consequences for news and public life.

    Rodrigo Zamith is an

    Associate Professor and former Chair of the Journalism Department at the
    University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research and teaching
    interests lie at the intersection of journalism and technology, with a
    focus on understanding the social implications of emerging technologies
    for how news is produced, distributed, and consumed. He is a recipient
    of UMass’ Distinguished Teaching Award.

    Tomás Dodds is an Assistant Professor in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Director of its Public Tech Media Lab.

    His research examines the evolving relationship between journalism and
    technology, with a focus on how journalists and media organizations can
    develop open-source tools and artificial intelligence systems that serve
    the public interest.


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    1 hr 6 min
  • James W. Cortada, "Beyond the Facts: Tacit Knowledge and the Hidden Infrastructure of Our Informed Times" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

    Beyond the Facts: Tacit Knowledge and the Hidden Infrastructure of Our Informed Times (Bloomsbury, 2025) describes tacit knowledge, what it is, how it used

    and its role in our current data driven world. Author James Cortada
    argues that fuzzy, hard-to describe information is greater and more, important than just hard
    facts. What is tacit knowledge? It is what we might consider knowledge
    that is unable to be fully communicated; knowledge that we understand
    implicitly, but it is a bit hard to explain. For example, it is the kind
    of knowledge one needs to ride a bicycle, but that cannot be described
    precisely on paper in the way one might be able to explain how to cook a
    dish. Tacit knowledge is the least understood type of information and
    one of the most difficult to communicate. Yet there is more tacit
    knowledge in our lives than the specific facts one can find in a book,
    on the Internet or in the simple form of a fact. This book is designed
    to introduce the reader to the concept of tacit knowledge and how to
    recognize and use it. This book offers definitions of tacit knowledge
    and compares the topic to explicit knowledge, then describes how the
    former is used today. The author argues that both types are used today
    and explains how one can use both types of knowledge in their lives.
    This book is essential primer to understanding tacit knowledge and learning how to use it to your advantage.

    Guest: James

    (Jim) Cortada is a senior research fellow at the University of
    Minnesota. He is a leading authority on the role of modern information.
    He holds a PhD in modern history but worked at IBM Corporation for
    nearly 40 years in sales and consulting. He has written
    several books on the business history of the computer industry and just
    over a dozen on the history and use of information over the past two
    centuries. So, he straddles the subject between historical evolution and
    its current uses.

    Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna

    is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator
    and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.


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    46 min
  • Devin Kennedy, "Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy" (Columbia UP, 2026)

    Long before Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, computer technology shaped how people worked, how markets operated,

    and how businesses became big. After World War II, military officials
    and their partners in industry looked to the newly invented electronic
    computer as they sought to cut costs, speed up labor,
    manage supply chains, and—they hoped—bring stability to the postwar
    economy. Their efforts would shape early computer science and the first
    applications of computer technology in manufacturing and business, with
    profound consequences for workers and managers alike. By the 1960s,
    practices originally developed to improve industrial efficiency were
    being used by Wall Street, influencing how markets worked and even how
    traders thought. Digital technology became central to finance, tying
    together far-flung trading floors and automating decision making—with
    alarming consequences, including the 1987 Black Monday crash.

    In Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy

    (Columbia University Press, 2026), Dr. Devin Kennedy offers a new
    history of the digital economy, showing how the computer emerged
    from—and transformed—capitalism in the United States. He traces how
    computer science and technology were made by industry, which molded
    computation to manage factories, financial markets, and entire firms.
    Drawing on the archives of businesses, computer researchers, regulators,
    and financial institutions, Coding Capitalism retells the story of the postwar economy and the computer, revealing how mid-century
    business laid the foundations of the digital world. Bridging business
    and economic history with the history of science and technology, this
    book uncovers the prehistory of big tech and demonstrates how capitalism has shaped computing since its invention.

    This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book

    focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
    negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
    analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
    Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 


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    57 min
  • The Emerging Anocracy: AI, Tech Oligarchs, and the Future of Democracy with Alexis Cruz

    In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Acting Director Eli Karetny sits down with Alexis Cruz, founder of Enough Consulting and former strategic advisor for governance at Meta. Cruz explores how the proliferation of AI and digital platforms has shifted global politics into an "anocracy"—a precarious gray zone situated between traditional democracy and authoritarianism.


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    58 min
  • Ali Fard, "Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow of Data" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

    Since the 1990s, technologists have promoted a vision of the “cloud” as a shapeless and intangible entity. Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow of Data

    (University of Minnesota Press, 2026) by Dr. Ali Fard peers through
    this hazy façade to reveal the earthly material foundations of global
    computing and data extraction. Tracing the historical and technological
    development of the cloud computing paradigm, Dr. Fard exposes an
    ever-evolving project in which ideologies, economic models, and
    marketing images collude to shape our shared urban environments.

    Demonstrating how technology’s spatial footprint now stretches to nearly every corner of the globe, Grounding the Cloud analyzes

    the often-hidden infrastructures that facilitate platform
    capitalism—from the mines extracting rare earth minerals in remote
    regions to the vast global network of fiber-optic cables at the bottom of the oceans to the nondescript data centers
    that sit on the peripheries of major urban areas. Meanwhile, with
    compelling examples of smart-city initiatives and corporate campuses,
    Dr. Fard shows how the future of urbanism is deeply intertwined with the
    growing economies of data extraction.

    Breaking

    down the myth of a clean and efficient tech urbanism, this book makes
    visible the complex material geographies and geopolitics that undergird
    today’s most powerful and omnipresent corporations. A timely critique of
    the growing agency of tech platforms in determining the future of urban
    space, Grounding the Cloud offers an essential framework for understanding the shifting relationship between technology and urbanization.

    This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book

    focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
    negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
    analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
    Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 


    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    44 min
  • Joseph Turow, "The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

    A respected voice on technology shows how seemingly simple ads help dismantle democracy and public discourse.

    Whether

    you’re intentionally shopping or casually browsing social media,
    something is following you: ads. Their creators seem to know your income
    bracket, politics, age, location, medical conditions, and tastes in
    clothing, food, and romantic partners. As advertising firms use
    predictive AI to discover your hot buttons and generative AI to push
    them, your online world becomes an increasingly bespoke—and
    isolated—place. The fervid competition around personalization in digital
    marketing has given rise to an ecosystem of advertisers, media outlets,
    tech companies, and retailers who monetize your data while threatening
    the health of our media, discourse, and sense of community. In this
    urgent book, award-winning author Joseph Turow shows how we got here,
    and how to change direction.The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age (University
    of Chicago Press, 2026) shatters common beliefs about advertising
    history by showing that individualized ads are not new. Today’s
    AI-enabled advertisers draw on past aspirations and assumptions about
    personalization while weaponizing data in unprecedented ways that drive
    social fragmentation and the disappearance of shared social reality.
    Informed by interviews with marketing insiders and covering the latest
    technology advances, Turow accessibly explains how artificial
    intelligence sifts through our data to tag and target us wherever we go
    with personalized videos, pictorial billboards, audio messages, and
    more. A logical next step for advertiser support is tailored
    entertainment and news, a shift that further destroys the common ground
    necessary for a functioning democracy.

    A must-read for all who care about the future of public discourse, The Problem with Personalization reveals how targeted advertising has altered how we’re seen and what we see in return.


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    1 hr 3 min

About New Books in Artificial Intelligence

From the publisher's feed

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.