Have you been feeling trapped in an endless cycle of artificial intelligence hype and panic? It’s a chaotic time to make sense of the industry that’s reshaping our lives, whether or not we like it. Last week, another AI company employee publicly resigned, warning the technology “could kill us all by the end of the decade”.
Despite these dire warnings, AI companies have seen “otherworldly” surges in revenue and driven the US stock markets to new highs as they continue to push AI tools into everything from public school classrooms to law enforcement agencies, as well as rushing to put up new datacenters across the country. Thankfully, the Guardian’s tech reporters – and a few other tech experts we respect – are here to help. We’ve compiled an essential reading list of smart books that explain and critique the AI industry; books that, while flawed, illustrate key viewpoints in the AI debates; and a few books that provide deeper political and social context, including some works of speculative fiction.
The most intensively reported book on the AI industry so far, Empire of AI covers the rise of OpenAI, as well as the formation of Anthropic and OpenAI chief Sam Altman’s split with Elon Musk. Parts of the book can feel a bit inside baseball, but the reporting is great and shows how the key American AI companies brought us to this point. Some early reviews of the book in 2025 suggested Hao’s take on the industry was overly negative: she has since been entirely vindicated.
An in-depth look at how the US military and Palantir worked together to build autonomous weapons and surveillance systems that are an actual catastrophic threat – not an imagined one. From the journalist and host of the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast, this is a deep investigation into the physical impact of AI data centers around the world, and the toll they are taking on local communities and the global environment. A bestselling book on the rise of Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that has provided sweeping surveillance powers to law enforcement, businesses and billionaires, by building a massive database of online images.
The AI Con – Emily M Bender and Alex Hanna In response to claims that AI will soon far surpass all human capabilities, and that the technology is advancing so quickly it’s on the verge of becoming a new life form, the authors of The AI Con have a simple response: “LOL” and “they wish”. These two tech critic academics argue that this kind of rhetoric is “AI hype” – lies and exaggerations that are helping rich people make more money “by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity”. If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies – Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares If you want to understand the perspective of the people panicking that AI will destroy humanity, this book is a good place to start.
It’s a “doomer classic” that has been described as a book-length version of the tweet that made everyone freak out this past week. Unfortunately for readers, its predictions of doom are based more on grand thought experiments than on an engagement with how AI is currently playing out in the world. The book “reads like a Scientology manual”, a New York Times reviewer wrote.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
