The hidden costs of artificial intelligence—from natural resources and labor to privacy, equality, and freedom.

What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? Drawing on more than a decade of research, award‑winning scholar Kate Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the minerals drawn from the earth to the labor pulled from low-wage information workers to the data taken from every action and expression.

Crawford reveals how this planetary network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance and increased inequity. Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a material and political perspective on what it takes to make AI and how it centralizes power. This is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world.

The economic analysis of the digital economy has been a rapidly developing research area for more than a decade. Through authoritative examination by leading scholars, this Handbook takes a closer look at particular industries, business practices, and policy issues associated with the digital industry. The volume offers an up-to-date account of key topics, discusses open questions, and provides guidance for future research. It offers a blend of theoretical and empirical works that are central to understanding the digital economy. The chapters are presented in four sections, corresponding with four broad themes: 1) infrastructure, standards, and platforms; 2) the transformation of selling, encompassing both the transformation of traditional selling and new, widespread application of tools such as auctions; 3) user-generated content; and 4) threats in the new digital environment. The first section covers infrastructure, standards, and various platform industries that rely heavily on recent developments in electronic data storage and transmission, including software, video games, payment systems, mobile telecommunications, and B2B commerce. The second section takes account of the reduced costs of online retailing that threatens offline retailers, widespread availability of information as it affects pricing and advertising, digital technology as it allows the widespread employment of novel price and non-price strategies (bundling, price discrimination), and auctions, as well as better tar. The third section addresses the emergent phenomenon of user-generated content on the Internet, including the functioning of social networks and open source. Finally, the fourth section discusses threats arising from digitization and the Internet, namely digital piracy, privacy and internet security concerns.

"An engrossing microcosm of the internet's Wild West years" (Kirkus Reviews), award-winning journalist David Kushner tells the incredible battle between the founder of Match.com and the con man who swindled him out of the website Sex.com, resulting in an all-out war for control for what still powers the internet today: love and sex.In 1994, visionary entrepreneur Gary Kremen used a $2,500 loan to create the first online dating service, Match.com. Only five percent of Americans were using the internet at the time, and even fewer were looking online for love. He quickly bought the Sex.com domain too, betting the combination of love and sex would help propel the internet into the mainstream. Imagine Kremen's surprise when he learned that someone named Stephen Michael Cohen had stolen the rights to Sex.com and was already making millions that Kremen would never see. Thus follows the wild true story of Kremen's and Cohen's decade-long battle for control. In The Players Ball, author and journalist David Kushner provides a front seat to these must-read Wild West years online, when innovators and outlaws battled for power and money. This cat-and-mouse game between a genius and a con man changed the way people connect forever, and is key to understanding the rise and future of the online world. "Kushner delivers a fast-paced, raunchy tale of sex, drugs, and dial-up." --Publishers Weekly

Two guys named Steve, working in a garage, created a prototype computer designed to be different in a way no one thought possible: It would be easy to use. Those two Steves, one now a billionaire and still at the head of Apple, not only succeeded with that product, but they also broke ground in the business world in ways few thought possible: They proved you could not only have fun at work, but pursuing a capitalist dream could be hip. How did Apple do it? How did it go from making computers that made a difference but not much of a dent in the overall market to creating a device (the iPod) and a music service (iTunes) that has changed the way we buy and experience music? And how did the MacIntosh and its successors capture the hearts and minds of computer users so deeply that being a "Mac person" makes you a member of a special club? That's what this book is all about. As author Jason D. O'Grady shows, Apple is a rare company--one that is not afraid to think about a future that does not exist and turn it into reality. Critics have written Apple off time and again, yet it rises from the ashes to astound the critics and delight its customers. That's not luck or happenstance--it's vision, dedication, and persistence. Besides delighting Apple aficionados, this book will inspire students eager to launch a business career or work in the technology sector. Apple has never been afraid to chart its own path, and readers will learn what makes the company tick. This stimulating book: --Explains the importance of the company and the essential disruptions that changed business forever (think iPod).--Details Apple's origins and history. --Presents biographies of the founders and the historical contextin which they launched the company. --Explains Apple's strategies and innovations. --Assesses Apple's impact on society, technology, processes, and methods. --Shows how Apple beat the competition in selected markets. --Details financial results over the years. --Predicts Apple's future prospects and successes. In addition, O'Grady offers special features that include a look at the colorful people associated with Apple, interesting trivia, an Apple time line, a focus on products, and where the company is headed. Apple--a company that changed, and is changing, the world.

The book describes the main directions for the development of the digital society. The author angles its book to those who are interested to know what would replace search engines, and how social networks would evolve; what profit can be made of different forms of informational collaboration (crowdsourcing, collaborative filtering). And, the main thing, how it will influence the structure of the society and human pursuit for happiness. The author does not confine himself to a theory, he sets and solves practical questions: How talent, success and "stardom" are interconnected, how to make money in social networks, what is the business model for the development of entertainment and media, how to measure cultural values, and what is the subjective time of the individual and how to make it qualitative? There have been no answers to these questions before. Internet and social networks have provided tools and data that Alexander Dolgin was the first to use in economics.

Silicon Valley veterans and newbies alike will want to explore this book that delves into the rich history behind the region that birthed the world's most important industry. Technology journalist Ashlee Vance has captured almost every aspect of the area stretching between San Francisco and San Jose, California, starting with the eager radio and electronics enthusiasts of the early 1900s and ending with the computing powerhouses of today such as Google and Apple. Along the way, the book profiles the people and places that have elevated Silicon Valley to an almost mythic pedestal. This book delivers Silicon Valley, taking us from success story to failed startup and back again as we drive the roads from San Francisco to Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and San Jose. It's full of profiles of the larger-than-life characters that pioneered the processor, computer, and Internet revolutions. The book's vibrant design includes "Silicon Valley Soundbytes" packed with insider information and trivia, and "Click Here" sidebars, which suggest places to eat, drink, and shop.Place by place, readers get the inside scoop on all the addresses that count, which include Microsoft research centers; the headquarters of Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Sun Microsystems, and Oracle; research powerhouses such as Stanford University, NASA Ames, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; the Computer History Museum and The Tech Museum; the Shoreline Amphitheater; the Churchill Club; and many more.

The research and policy evaluations presented in these papers represent a uniquely valuable evolving record of policy and research on high technology small firms through many changes in economic conditions and government policy approaches over more the a decade and a half. Specific issues in the book series cover many of the key industrial development policies adopted by developed, and developing, national governments since the early 1990's including, for example, writings on policy and practice concerning science parks, incubators, academic enterprise, industrial networking and the role of clusters in nurturing high technology small firms formation and growth. In particular, the on-going problem of early stage high technology funding has been a theme of constant concern since 1993, and because it remains resistant to amelioration, will endure into the future. Both the conference and the ensuing book series represent a pre-eminent vehicle for all the major international researchers concerned with high technology small firms to present their work to each other and the wider public.

Universities are increasingly being asked to play a greater role in their communities. With the growth of the technology industry and the increasing importance of the Internet in education and everyday life, academic IT departments are beginning to form partnerships with both non-profit and for-profit organizations in the local community. These partnerships can relate to the whole curriculum, to specific classes, to students internships, to theoretical research, and to industrial research, and there are many other possibilities for IT/Community partnerships. Managing IT/Community Partnerships in the 21st Century explores the various possibilities for partnerships between academic IT departments and community-based organizations.

Despite the proliferation of smart technologies, the challenges of information hygiene continue to wreak havoc on the information landscape, hence the need to explore and analyze how such a phenomenon can be handled. This book will explore the concept of information hygiene in a time when citizens are deluged with an avalanche of information from all angles, especially in the COVID-1i pandemic and infodemic era. Information hygiene refers to the experiences to the experiences of information users in an era of information overabundance. If not handled well, it becomes an infodemic. It is upon information and media practitioners to build a capacity among citizens to become conscious consumers and generators of information. While recognizing the convergence of disciplines namely media, library science, records management, and ICTs, this book analyzes the concept of information hygiene from the perspectives of media and library science, ICT, and records and archival science experts. It will identify and analyze challenges and opportunities for information science practitioners and media institutions in the fight against information disorder. This book also explores the unhygienic practices in the information value change. Information hygiene is critical if the world is to overcome the challenges of overabundance and information in the current dispensation.

Modern workplaces are far more technology-driven than the organizations of a few decades ago, leading to a different set of challenges for employers to keep their employees working efficiently, and for employees to balance their work and home lives. Managing Dynamic Technology-Oriented Businesses: High-Tech Organizations and Workplaces explores the culture of modern high-tech workplaces and the different challenges and opportunities that new technologies present for modern workers and employers. This pivotal reference will delve deep into management practices throughout the world, including American, European, Asian, and Middle-Eastern high-tech companies.

By highlighting the factors that configured the emergence of India as an ICT superpower from the South and limited success of some countries that long since embraced liberal trade regime, this volume highlights the ways to transform the digital divide into digital dividend. Drawing from the detailed case studies of India and five ASEAN countries, it establishes the complementary role of innovation system and trade regime in promoting production and use of ICT and draws lessons for other developing countries that adopted a liberal trade regime to catch up with the ICT revolution.

Managing risk is essential for every organization. However, significant opportunities may be lost by concentrating on the negative aspects of risk without bearing in mind the positive attributes. The objective of Project Risk Management: Managing Software Development Risk is to provide a distinct approach to a broad range of risks and rewards associated with the design, development, implementation and deployment of software systems. The traditional perspective of software development risk is to view risk as a negative characteristic associated with the impact of potential threats. The perspective of this book is to explore a more discerning view of software development risks, including the positive aspects of risk associated with potential beneficial opportunities. A balanced approach requires that software project managers approach negative risks with a view to reduce the likelihood and impact on a software project, and approach positive risks with a view to increase the likelihood of exploiting opportunities. Project Risk Management: Managing Software Development Risk explores software development risk both from a technological and business perspective. Issues regarding strategies for software development are discussed and topics including risks related to technical performance, outsourcing, cybersecurity, scheduling, quality, costs, opportunities and competition are presented. Bringing together concepts across the broad spectrum of software engineering with a project management perspective, this volume represents both a professional and scholarly perspective on the topic.

The papers containedin this volume were presentedat the 5th IFIP InternationalC- ference on Theoretical Computer Science (IFIP TCS), 7-10 September 2008, Milan, Italy. TCS is a bi-annual conference.The ?rst conferenceof the series was held in Sendai (Japan, 2000), followed by Montreal (Canada, 2002), Toulouse (France, 2004) and Santiago (Chile, 2006).TCS is organizedby IFIP TC1 (Technical Committee 1: Fo- dations of Computer Science) and Working Group 2.2 of IFIP TC2 (Technical C- mittee 2: Software: Theory and Practice). TCS 2008 was part of the 20th IFIP World Computer Congress (WCC 2008), constituting the TC1 Track of WCC 2008. The contributed papers were selected from 36+45 submissions from altogether 30 countries. A total of 14+16 submissions were accepted as full papers. Papers in this volume are original contributions in two general areas: Track A: Algorithms, C- plexity and Models of Computation;and Track B: Logic, Semantics, Speci?cation and Veri?cation. The conference also included seven invited presentations, from Luca Cardelli, Thomas Ehrhard, Javier Esparza, Antonio Restivo, Tim Roughgarden, Gr- gorz Rozenberg and Avraham Trakhtman. These presentations are included (except one) in this volume. In particular, Luca Cardelli, Javier Esparza, Antonio Restivo, Tim Roughgarden and Avraham Trakhtman accepted our invitation to write full papers - lated to their talks.

In today's knowledge-driven economy, the ability to share insight and know-how is essential for driving innovation and growth. In this groundbreaking volume, scholars from around the world demonstrate how communication and information technologies are enabling dynamic project design and management practices that challenge traditional concepts of time, space and behavior. Showcasing experiments in architecture, engineering, and construction design--employing technological infrastructures that link people and their ideas across physical, intellectual, and cultural boundaries--the authors consider such issues as the links between "competence" and "innovation" and between individual and collective knowledge. At the heart of their analysis is the realization that technological innovation is chiefly a social activity. The implications are profound for the practical management of complex design projects, experiments in distance learning and virtual teams, and emerging theoretical concepts of collaborative learning and innovation.

Human Capital in the Indian IT / BPO Industry analyses human capital management in the Indian information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, which has created a new paradigm for organising global talent engaged in designing and delivering IT and BPO services.

Based on first-hand information obtained from Chinese and Foreign enterprises and institutions in the Chinese ICT industry, this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of Chinese ICT industrial sector. It especially analyses the strengths, weaknesses, and threats facing both the Chinese enterprise and western multinationals.

Governments, the media, the information technology industry and scientists publicly argue that information and communication technologies (ICT) will bring about an inevitable transition from "industrial" to "information" or "knowledge-based" economies and societies. It is assumed that all aspects of our economic and social lives, in both the public and private spheres, will be radically different from what they are today. The World Summit on the Information Society (Geneva 2003 - Tunis 2005) shows the importance of a worldwide reflection on those topics.

Perspectives and Policies on ICT in Society explores the ICT policies of different nations and regions such as Africa, China, Europe, and India. The authors assess the arguments surrounding the impending new age, as well as some of the more sensitive issues of its developments. This progress will signal an expansion of ICT in many domains - the so-called ubiquity - such as in the workplace, the home, government, and education and it will affect privacy and professional ethics. The expansion will also encompass all parts of the earth, particularly developing countries. Such growth must take place in the context of historical dimensions and should underscore the accountability of professionals in the field.

The intent of this book is to address these issues and to serve as a handbook of IFIP's TC9 "Computers and Society" committee. Thirty authors from twelve countries consider the ICT policies with their associated perspectives and they explore what may be the information age and the digital society of tomorrow. The book provides reflection on today's complex society and addresses the uncertain developments rising from an increasingly global and technologically connected world.

Jacques Berleur is at the University of Namur, Belgium, and Chrisanthi Avgerou at the London School of Economics, United Kingdom.

This comprehensive overview of the history of computing and its industry, and of commercial applications of the computer also outlines the history of how computing operations were managed within American companies. Based on extensive research in the contemporary business literature, this work is one of the few which looks at computing as business history, and it is the first to look at the broad scope of computing from the perspective of the business historian. The work is also directed at business managers to help them appreciate and understand the uses of the computer in their firms.

This book examines India's new economy -- its strengths, weaknesses and potential. The book covers three key areas of growth in India's economy -- the IT (information technology) sector, export trade (with its externality effects) and the financial sector (in particular, banking reforms).

Standards wars of open source software products are far from being adequately understood. Through the examination of the Mozilla Firefox case, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the drivers, mechanisms and strategies involved in winning a standards-battle in open source software.

In today's complex and dynamic world the need to be informed about what is going on in the environment of the organization is increasing rapidly. To this end, organizations implement a process called 'competitive intelligence'. Competitive intelligence (CI) is about gathering and analyzing environmental information for strategic purposes. To gather and analyze this information, information and communication technology (ICT) is an invaluable tool. Examples are: the Internet, data warehouses or specific applications for competitive intelligence. However, the uncritical implementation of these tools may lead to an 'information overload' or to 'environmental myopia'. To select the right ICT tools for CI, an organization needs to understand the role of ICT in the CI-process. Information and Communications Technology for Competitive Intelligence addresses this need. It sets out to assess the role and possibilities of ICT in the intelligence activities from different perspectives.

This book takes an in-depth look at the software industry as a major factor in future global economic performance. It explores how software-based companies are a significant factor behind economic growth and serve as important bridge builders between industries. Countries with a weak and underdeveloped software industry risk being left behind in the 21st century. The book examines the case of Germany as one of the world's major industrial nations, which is facing loss of competitiveness due to its underdeveloped software sector. It shows how the German software market is characterized by a multiplicity of small and medium sized companies and exhibits a shortage of globally dominating companies. This is presented and examined in the light of Germany being a powerhouse for technologies in sectors other than the software industry. The book analyzes the current situation and future potential of the German software industry. Using empirical analysis and international case studies, it presents the status quo and offers recommendations for policy makers. It shows effective management strategies for the sustainable international growth of software-based companies. The recommendations in this book are intended to secure Germany's front seat on the express train bound for the second half of the 21st century.

'Essential for any leader in any industry' - Kim Scott, bestselling author of Radical Candor Working Backwards gives an insider's account of Amazon's approach to culture, leadership and best practices from two long-time, top-level Amazon executives. Colin Bryar and Bill Carr joined Amazon in the late 90s. Their time at the company covered a period of unmatched innovation that brought products and services - including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Echo and Alexa, and Amazon Web Services - to life. Through the story of these innovations they reveal the principles and practices that drive Amazon's success. Through their wealth of experience they offer unprecedented access to the 'Amazon way' as it was refined, articulated and proven to be repeatable, scalable and adaptable. Working Backwards shows how success is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously executed principles and practices that you can apply at your own company, no matter the size. 'Working Backwards should be read by anyone interested in the real thing - the principles, processes and practices of twenty-first-century management and leadership' - Forbes 'Gives us the story as it developed at the time - and that is probably worth the cover price of the book in itself' - Financial Times