Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English

THE EQUALITY MACHINE

Orly Lobel

Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future

A professor of law and technology offers a contrarian and optimistic argument that AI, robotics, and digital platforms can be used as a tool to help achieve equality.

Orly Lobel is a distinguished professor of Law at University of San Diego and founder of the Center for Intellectual Property and Markets. She began her career as a digital analyst for the Israeli military, and she clerked for the Israeli Supreme Court drafting decisions that allowed women to serve in combat positions for the first time. She uses her expertise to look at the problems with technology and AI and provide practical tools alongside an inspiring new vision of our digital future to move the needle on equality and forge a path for this important change, at a time where advancements in technology are constantly recreating our world.

Countries everywhere are grappling with the dual challenges of technology races and quest for equality, and Lobel draws on stories from scientists, business leaders, companies, and activists all around the world. Among other examples, she discusses advances in automation in China, and the efforts of European countries to regulate algorithmic accountability, as well as considering the differences in how countries relate to robots - taking readers all over the world to discover the potential and revolutionary promise of digital technology.

The Equality Machine ignites a deeply informed, aggressively researched conversation about the path to digital era equality. From closing the gender pay gap to exposing and correcting biases in hiring and marketing, tracking and preventing workplace harassment and diversifying the cultural images and voices we see and hear online, to increasing the privacy and safety of women and girls, artificial intelligence, big data, and digital platforms can offer a positive path towards a better future.

This book presents a vision, a blueprint, and a call to action: despite its risks and flaws, digitization can and must become a powerful force for good - for fairness, inclusion, and equality. Through wise implementation of new technology, we can implement a more equal market. This book offers new insights, research-based solutions, and updated policies for a more inclusive and fair society.

Orly Lobel is an award-winning author and the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego. She is the Director of the Program of Employment and Labor Law as well as the founding faculty of the Center for Intellectual Property and Markets. She is the author of two previous books, You Don't Own Me: How Mattel Vs. MGA Entertainment Exposed Barbie's Dark Side, which was reviewed by Jill Lepore in The New Yorker and has been optioned for film, and Talent Wants to Be Free: Why We Should Learn to Love Leaks, Raids, and Free Riding, which was published in Korean and Romanian. Lobel's books and work have been written about in The Economist, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Financial Times, Globe and Mail, NPR's "Marketplace," CNBC, and CNN Money.

Lobel has collaborated with the World Trade Organization, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. She has lectured at Yale, Harvard, and Tel Aviv University, among others, and is a frequent speaker at top research institutions, industry, and government forums throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.

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Book Published 2022-11-01 by Public Affairs

Comments

The Equality Machine is beautifully written, brimming with enthusiasm and can-do spirit. Lobel makes a compelling argument that AI can help solve some of our most important social problems, ranging from discrimination to human trafficking. Deeply aware of technology's virtues and limits, Lobel offers singular insights for anyone interested in technology and safety.

Finally, a bold, positive, and forward-thinking approach to the challenges we face with automated technology.

With great computing power comes great responsibility. The Equality Machine shows how we can direct AI for good and create a society in which our lives are not limited by gender, race, sexuality, age, geography, or ability. As always, Orly Lobel gives us a crystal-clear, front-row seat to our evolving digital realities. A must-read!

The Equality Machine offers a hard-headed yet hopeful analysis of how digitization and artificial intelligence can reduce discrimination and promote opportunity. By rejecting both utopian dreams and dystopian nightmares, Lobel shows that it's up to us to enlist these new technologies as forces for good and engines for progressive values. One of our sharpest legal minds has produced an utterly compelling book.

Who should we believe? The glass-half-full people who tell us that AI is going to bring about the next stage of human development, or the glass-half-empty people who tell us that this will be the end of all that is good about humanity? What Lobel shows in The Equality Machine is that the answer is up to us. We can implement AI in ways that deepen our challenges, and we can implement this technology in ways that both fix some of our existing problems and promote our human agenda.

A timely book on how we can create technologies that fight bias instead of intensifying it. Orly Lobel offers a compelling vision for a digital future that's fairer to all of us.

Artificial intelligence in particular and technology in general are changing almost every aspect of the human experience. Can smarter and smarter machines make life better and better - and not just for the few and the privileged, but for everyone? Lobel offers a compelling, inspiring, and actionable argument that the answer is yes.

Most discussions of AI and equality today focus on the negative: how AI systems pose risks of algorithmic bias and discrimination. Without being a tech apologist, Lobel gives us a much-needed dose of the positive: how AI can advance our aspirations for greater equality at work, in healthcare, at home, in our language and imagery, and in our relationships. The Equality Machine will take you on a tour of what people can build when aspiring to use the power of AI to make the world a more equal place. Read it and get inspire to join them.

Lobel offers a contrarian and original view: that technology can be a foundation for equality and inclusion rather than a source of bias and inequality. Read this book to find out why and how.

With this incisive and engaging book, Lobel invites academics, nonprofit leaders, investors, business leaders, and policymakers to use data to solve the world's most pressing problems, being neither cavalier nor afraid.

What if technology could help? Two decades ago, that idea seemed obvious. Today, it seems impossible. But in this beautifully written and wide-ranging work, Orly Lobel shows how a smart architecting of our technical environment can make us better humans, in a healthier environment. This is critical thinking and insight when and where we need it most.

With rich and engaging examples, Lobel brings together the too-often siloed debates over fears and hopes about artificial intelligence. With real, human intelligence, she identifies workable guards against gender and racial biases. She also highlights profound moral, political, and technical challenges worth both immediate and long-term attention.