Challenging the myth of AI as immaterial or autonomous, Crawford shows how contemporary machine learning systems are built on extraction, inequality, and planetary-scale exploitation.

In Atlas of AI, Kate Crawford traces artificial intelligence back to its material foundations — from rare earth mining and data labour to energy consumption, surveillance regimes, and state power.

Blending technology studies, political economy, environmental analysis, and critical theory, this book reframes AI as an infrastructural and colonial project rather than a neutral technological advance.

Essential reading for anyone trying to think clearly about power, computation, and the future being quietly built around us.