Mind Under Siege

Bruno Giussani—author, curator of ideas, and podcaster—was European director and global curator of the widely heeded TED Conferences and TED Talks 2005–24. In Mind Under Siege, the renowned expert on digital culture writes on the technologies of influence and their social and political implications. In a world with its constant flood of information, social media, artificial intelligence, and strategies of cognitive influence all over, the integrity of our thought is under threat. Technologies that appropriate our personal data, analysing and exploiting our emotions, algorithmise our entire being. It is no longer about influence through disinformation and fake news only: the aim is control and modulation of our attention, perception, and autonomy of thought.

Giussani offers an efficacious guide to develop collective and individual strategies to understand the complex relationship between ourselves and the artificial intelligences that increasingly invade our daily lives, professionally as much as privately. He explains the economic and power structures in which these technologies exist, and teaches us how to use AI without being used by it.