Business · Rest of World
Why AI alone cannot patch social problems
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In the decades-long pursuit of solving social problems using technology, artificial intelligence is the newest hammer.
Key facts
- In the book AI Snake Oil, authors Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor compare this trend to the “snake oil” of the early 20th century, or products marketed as miracle cures
- Shiksha Copilot, developed by Microsoft Research India, is an AI-based lesson planning tool to support teachers in the country
- In Atlas of AI, author Kate Crawford argued that AI is not a neutral or purely technical system, but a vast extractive industry built on natural resources, human labor, and entrenched systems of power
- This aligns with Kentaro Toyama’s argument in Geek Heresy, where he suggests that technology can only amplify existing human and institutional capacities rather than substitute for them
Summary
In the book AI Snake Oil, authors Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor compare this trend to the “snake oil” of the early 20th century, or products marketed as miracle cures. But it would be dismissive to ignore AI’s genuine potential. Yet there is something deeply contradictory about relying on a technology rooted in structural inequities for addressing social problems. These systems are themselves products of the inequities they aim to mitigate.”