The Generative AI revolution is driven by corporations demanding legal superpowers. If we allow it to continue unchecked, the implications will be profound. This urgent, critical book exposes the unprecedented push by trillion-dollar companies to build AI on billions of unauthorized human works and redefine fundamental areas of law, including copyright, contract, and free speech. Written by an industry insider who turned from AI champion to AI critic, this highly accessible work promotes AI literacy and provides essential tools to pierce the hype. Readers will learn how to assess AI's profound societal risks to democracy and autonomy and ensure that we are the architects of-and not bystanders in-our artificial future.

‘In a field crowded with overly complicated analogies and jargon, Our Artificial Future is smart, engaging, accessible, and sharply timed – offering the kind of clear-eyed critique of AI that only David Atkinson can deliver. It provides exactly the framework this moment demands.’

J. B. Branch - AI Governance and Technology Policy Counsel, Public Citizen

‘David Atkinson provides a brilliant critical review of generative AI and its effects that will answer your technical, social, and legal questions but is ultimately a call to action. Read it, and then act in your family, your workplace, your community, and your country to ensure that human values and skills are preserved.’

Robert Brauneis - Michael J. McKeon Professor of Intellectual Property Law, The George Washington University Law School