The book explains that AI systems require massive amounts of energy, rare earth minerals, and water resources, contributing significantly to environmental degradation and climate change through their infrastructure requirements and operational demands.

Crawford demonstrates that AI systems inherit and amplify human biases, being shaped by the political, social, and economic interests of their creators, making them far from the objective decision-makers they're often portrayed to be.

The book details how AI development relies on exploited labor forces, from mineral miners to data annotators, while also compromising personal privacy and individual autonomy through widespread surveillance and data collection practices.