Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI

Madhumita Murgia explores the human cost of artificial intelligence by centering the people behind — and harmed by — today’s digital systems. Through intimate reporting, she reveals how data workers, gig laborers, marginalized communities, and everyday users experience AI not as an abstraction but a force shaping real lives. Murgia writes with clarity and empathy, demystifying complex technology without diminishing its stakes. She offers a necessary counterpoint to industry hype, highlighting structural inequalities amplified by machine logic. The book is deeply accessible, unsettling, and urgently relevant.