Reviews and Comments

This really hit the mark for me. Very short read, but it had me clinging to the pages. The scenario is peculiar and incredibly eerie. It reminded me of some of Dick's sci-fi short stories, which I'm a fan of. As the first book in the trilogy, it raises more questions than it provides answers, so I'm looking forward to reading the rest and hopefully finding a satisfying resolution.

Read a paper from the authors and their ideas really resonated with me. So I got my uni's library to add this book to the inventory. Probably going to read it some time next month.

This book takes you on a journey through all areas of life and shows how Big Data systems cause harm in all of them. Through the examination of these case studies, it also gets to the fundamental issues with Big Data and proposes ways to change our perspectives on it.

This book is really good. It is clear, understandable for a layperson and very well-rounded. I would give it a 5/5 if there weren't these two points:

• it is completely US-centric. The case studies are all domestic. This weakens its explaining power for the rest of the world, imo. (this isn't to say that it doesn't make sense or that it's wrong for a US citizen to only write about the US)
• it's 8 years old now, and while it's analyses are not at all outdated, the world of Big Data has evolved since 2016. I often wondered what ended up happening to some of the real-world cases discussed in the book. I would be super curious to read a "follow up", maybe a "10 years later" kind of addendum or revision.

I wish I could give half-stars, because I probably would have given Dune a personal rating of 3.5/5.

I liked the story. I was able to fully immerse myself in the lore and the immaculate worldbuilding. And that was really something I have rarely seen anywhere else. I was contemplating whether to give this 3 or 4, but had to round up for the creativity in this area alone. I truly loved it.

My issue is mainly with the level of detail and the language. Some scenes are so excellently written that I felt like I was part of them, observing everything around me, noticing all the small things happening myself. Others, especially those concerned with Paul's inner conflicts, were almost excruciatingly abstract. And even though the language was beautiful throughout, I often found myself losing track in those sections (and, occasionally, genuinely having trouble understanding things linguistically, even with context – I didn't expect that it would encounter difficulties like that at all). Since those sections focused on Paul's interior are so crucial to Paul's development, and his development is, like, the main point of the book, I felt a bit lost, not really being able to trace how we'd gotten from the beginning to the end. I really only had this problem with Paul, not with any of the other characters. FWIW, Dune 2 (the movie) ended up having the same problem (to an even bigger extent, since the inner workings of Paul were not as exposed in it and the passing of time wasn't as clear).

I still think it was good - I just had a hard time with the main protagonist and that's why it failed to truly captivate me. Again, a lot (most) of it was really amazing. But it feels like I failed to grasp the entire thing, which is a bit sad. I'll probably continue reading the series at some point, though not sure when.

Hatte schon länger das nicht mehr verfügbare "Keine Enteignung ist auch keine Lösung" auf dem Schirm, diese Neuauflage/Überarbeitung kommt mir daher ganz recht.

This is really a long-form essay. It's very well-structured and extremely densely packed with succinct points about sociotechnological issues. In many instances, it expanded my horizon and made me question my own preoccupations regarding AI and even science at large. It's great; it gave me perspective and I learned about so many new interesting concepts that made a lot of sense in the context of AI. Off the top of my head, what stuck with me most were the ideas of "bureaucratic thoughtlessness", "states of exception", and of course, "necropolitics". I found that these are really good ways to think about and analyse AI. It goes so much deeper than the regular mainstream discourse about "AI ethics" and the like – the book is not afraid to put the hard questions on the table.

That said, I have two points of minor contention: First, I expected the second half of the book to be about "an antifascist approach to AI", i.e. concrete calls to action that directly relate to AI as a contemporary phenomenon. In a sense, it was about that – but it was just a little too abstract for me and the sections on worker's and people's councils felt somewhat disconnected from the rest. I really would have loved to see a more elaborate version of the very last subchapter. Second, this is not a book for AI enthusiasts or for people who still need convincing that there's something fundamentally wrong with AI today. That may not have been the goal here, but it makes it a little difficult to become a "I recommend this to absolutely everyone" kind of book. In general, it's not an easy read for someone completely unfamiliar with the groundwork in this area.

phew, chapter 5 is some heavy stuff. principles for "care-based" AI derived from 3-4 different theories of philosophy of science, none of which I'm familiar with of course. it didn't lose me, but it was reeeeaaaally abstract and meta.

I started reading but didn't get very far. Finishing the whole thing within a library rental period seems practically impossible for me. It probably doesn't help that a lot of the hook of this book surrounding formal logic is not new to me and I learned about it extensively at university very recently.

Might pick this up again at another point, right now I feel like reading different stuff.

"Der König von Berlin" ist eine nette, gut erzählte Geschichte, die für mich aber leider nicht wirklich als "Kriminalroman" funktioniert hat. Ich fand die Rätsel etwas durcheinander und, sobald die Richtung des Ganzen dann klar wurde, nicht mehr so spannend. Unabhängig davon ist es eine gut und vor allem (wie sollte es anders sein) humorvoll erzählte Geschichte mit toll geschriebenen Charakteren im typischen Stil von Evers, an dem ich nichts auszusetzen habe.

Kurz: Aufhänger und Thema (Ratten) sind kreativ, die Erzählung und Charaktere amüsant, aber die Krimi-Elemente leider zu lasch dafür, dass sich in dem Roman hauptsächlich darauf fokussiert wird.