Overview

I have digested a few books and courses relating to AI Ethics but I can’t keep up. Not only is there a large and rapidly growing corpus on the subject, but I haven’t yet found any outstanding recommendations for the quintessential read(s). Add to that one inescapable problem: published text ages, while AI evolves.

So it is in this light that I have conducted a highly non-scientific analysis of reviews, to present you with a possible hit list of the best content.

Limitations

Just books for now: At this time, the publications listed here are only books. If I get time I’ll expand to podcasts, papers, journals, regulations, etc.
No subject specificity: It’s hard to draw a clear line between broad, general content and narrow, specific content that is likely to get deeper into the weeds of particular issues like bias, transparency or regulation.
No fiction: I haven’t included creative works such as science fiction and speculative fiction for now. That deserves its own lists. But don’t take the absence of fictional content to imply a lack of value. If not through speculation, how can we predict or design our future?

If You Read One Thing…

Future Ethics

Future Ethics: Hats off to Cennydd Bowles who, coming from a Design background, has done an admirable job of writing a good all-rounder on technology ethics in the age of AI. I found it accessible and comprehensive, with a fast pace to cover a lot of ground (albeit therefore at quite a high level).

If You Read Anything Else, Read These

The best from the blogs

Consolidating and distillings recommendations from high-ranking web pages, a Premiere League of AI Ethics Reading might look something like this:

Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence

– Published 2021

The Ethical Algorithm: The Science of Socially Aware Algorithm Design

– Published 2020

Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control

– Published 2019

AI Ethics: MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series

– Published 2020

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

– Published 2016

Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

– Published 2021

Top rated on Goodreads

Below is my questionably calculated Top 25 from Goodreads, based on their listings for AI Ethics, which produced 124 results.

TOP 25	Title	Author	Av. Rating	No. Ratings	Published Year
1	Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men	Caroline Criado Pérez	4.36	106,721	2019
2	The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values	Brian Christian	4.41	2,524	2020
3	Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans	Melanie Mitchell	4.4	2,130	2019
4	Deep Learning	Ian Goodfellow	4.42	1,821	2016
5	Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach	Stuart Russell	4.19	4,183	1994
6	The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul	Douglas R. Hofstadter (editor)	4.15	5,781	1981
7	You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place	Janelle Shane	4.17	3,874	2019
8	AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order	Kai-Fu Lee	4.1	14,562	2018
9	Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms	Hannah Fry	4.12	10,084	2018
10	Data Feminism	Catherine D’Ignazio	4.36	1,044	2020
11	Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code	Ruha Benjamin	4.27	1,880	2019
12	On Intelligence	Jeff Hawkins	4.11	6,759	2004
13	Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference	Cordelia Fine	4.08	10,949	2010
14	The Technological Society	Jacques Ellul	4.3	1,022	1954
15	The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power	Shoshana Zuboff	4.06	10,764	2018
16	Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control	Stuart Russell	4.09	3,673	2019
17	Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence	Max Tegmark	4.02	23,162	2017
18	Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It	Mike Monteiro	4.13	1,885	(Not provided)
19	Practical Ethics	Peter Singer	4.08	3,201	1979
20	Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech	Sara Wachter-Boettcher	4.09	2,386	2017
21	Future Ethics	Cennydd Bowles	4.33	241	2018
22	Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need	Sasha Costanza-Chock	4.21	418	2020
23	AIQ: How People and Machines Are Smarter Together	Nick Polson	4.17	677	2018
24	Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again	Eric J. Topol	4.04	2,290	2019
25	The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains	Nicholas Carr	3.89	29,349	2010

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Long lists

If you want to go deeper, the following are some published reading lists, which include other forms of publication beyond books, such as papers and podcasts:

Algorithmic Bias Books, Ethical AI Books, AI Ethics Podcasts | AI Ethicist