This is one of the better books to emerge from the recent wave of AI writing.

Rather than speculating about futures, Murgia focuses on the present: the human lives already shaped, constrained, or quietly harmed by algorithmic systems deployed at scale. Drawing on reporting across healthcare, policing, welfare, and labour, the book foregrounds the uneven distribution of technological risk.

What distinguishes Code Dependent is not relying on reactivity, it's informative, not generative of hype or panic. Murgia writes as a journalist attentive to power, incentives, and institutional failure, not as a futurist or evangelist. The result is a grounded account of how automation embeds bias, obscures accountability, and normalises harm—often in places designed to appear neutral or efficient.