Anthropology and AI

Anthropology and AI explores the complex intersection of artificial intelligence and human society through a diverse collection of anthropological and social scientific perspectives.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly accelerating and permeating the everyday lives of people around the world in ways that are full of promise, perils, and potentials. How does anthropology respond to this? This timely volume brings together twelve carefully curated chapters examining AI’s many manifestations—from machine listening and engineers’ philosophies to large language models and conversational agents. Curated with a broad humanistic and social scientific audience in mind but firmly rooted within broader anthropological and STS conversations about humanity and technology, the contributions are situated on a broad spectrum of approaches to artificial intelligence, spanning theoretical, empirical, and applied social scientific research.

Anthropology and AI will appeal to students and researchers across anthropology, science and technology studies, digital humanities, and computer science who are interested in critical perspectives on emerging technologies.