How to use AI without being used by it

Author, curator and podcaster Bruno Giussani was the European director and global curator of the TED conferences for two decades (200524). In Our Minds Under Siege, the specialist of digital culture writes about the technologies of influence and their social and political implications. In a world saturated with information, social media, artificial intelligence and strategies of cognitive influence, our capacity for thinking clearly and understanding reality is itself under threat. It is no longer only about disinformation and fake news: these technologies capture our attention, appropriate our data, analyze and exploit our emotions and challenge our autonomy of thought.

Giussani decrypts how AI and other algorithmic technologies work and what their impacts are. He explains the nature of the relationship that is developing between us and these machines and the economic and power structures in which they exist. And he offers guidance to resisting against this technological takeover and for us to become competent users of AI without being used by it.

• A broadly intelligible analysis of how AI and other new technologies work and what their impacts are
• An efficacious guide to develop collective and individual strategies against the tech giants' aim of control and modulation of our attention, perception, and autonomy of thought
• A thought-provoking reflection on the entanglements of technology, business, geopolitics, and culture, and ways to break existing monopolies in the digital world
• Bruno Giussani is an internationally renowned expert on digital culture and the global curator of the widely heeded TED Talks 200524

Autorentext

Bruno Giussani, born 1964, is a Swiss author and podcaster whose work focuses on the intersection of politics, business and technology. He was the European director and global curator of the TED conferences, the organization behind the popular TED Talks, between 2005 and 2024. Prior to that, he wrote for many newspapers, such as The New York Times and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. He is host of the Deftech podcast on cognitive threats (2025) and the author of Roam: Making Sense of the Wireless Internet (Ramdon House, 2001) and Moins d'Amérique dans nos vies (Georg Éditeur 2025).

Zusammenfassung
How to use AI without being used by it