Artificial Intelligence - General News

AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference

On April 17, 2025, the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing welcomed Arvind Narayanan, Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University, to discuss his latest book, "AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference," co-authored with Sayash Kapoor.
Click to expand...

View: https://youtu.be/C3TqcUEFR58?si=BBNvqIUQ2zannm3g


Narayanan suggests three ways to shape AI for the better:
  1. Resist overhyped and harmful applications
  2. Guardrails for specific risks
  3. Limit tech companies' power and redistribute AI benefits
He has also identified a set of established narratives about AI:
  1. Superintelligence that will usher in utopia
  2. Superintelligence that will doom us
  3. It's a fad that will pass, we should be sceptical of it,
when it's more likely to be transformative but over decades.

There's a lot more to the video but I highlighted these because even though this is a news topic, the narratives still permeate it thoroughly. Kapoor also publishes a newsletter which seems worth a rummage at least and probably merits more.

aisnakeoil.com

AI Snake Oil | Sayash Kapoor | Substack

Debunking AI hype. The book gives you foundational knowledge and the newsletter covers new developments. Click to read AI Snake Oil, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
aisnakeoil.com aisnakeoil.com
 

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