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Predicted: Mona Sloane’s Debut Book Explores AI’s Social Power
It’s not the rise of intelligent machines that concerns sociologist Mona Sloane. It’s the subtle yet powerful move toward prediction as a means of organizing society — a paradigm shift that she says leaves little room for other possible futures.
In her first book, “Predicted: How AI Is Restructuring Social Life,” Sloane issues a warning call around this phenomenon, which she calls the prediction paradigm, suggesting that we take ownership over AI to proactively shape the future.
An assistant professor with dual appointments in media studies and data science, Sloane studies the intersection of artificial intelligence and society, specifically relating to AI design, use, and policy. She also leads the Co-Opting AI series, a public speaker series about how we use AI.
We spoke with her to discuss her thoughts on artificial intelligence and what she hopes to achieve with the publication of her new book, which came out earlier this month.
Q: What was your inspiration for writing “Predicted”?
I have been working on technology issues for 15 years and on AI for almost 10 — the book is my theorization of AI, based on that work. I was motivated to write it because I saw the discourse being wrapped up in doom or boom, rather than providing a more sober analysis of what AI actually is. I wanted to give people the power to imagine and enact great futures with AI and to understand it as a form of infrastructure that should be collectively governed.
Q: What is your relationship with AI in your personal and professional life?
I use AI for quick research tasks, to look for academic papers, to help edit short texts, or to write up meeting notes. AI is infrastructure, which means that we already use it in many ways and that it changes how we socially relate to one another. This is the case whether we are aware of it or not, because AI is already melted into existing digital infrastructures.
Q: Who do you hope will read this book and what impact would you like it to have?
This book is for everybody. The biggest impact I hope it will have is that people will begin to think of AI as a social phenomenon and one that they themselves can shape, rather than something that happens to them.
Q: What main takeaways do you hope readers will have?
AI is not a magical force or an inevitable phenomenon but a deliberate social arrangement that embeds the logic of prediction into the infrastructure of everyday life — and because AI is only real because we make it so, we have the power to shape what it becomes.
