What RSA Fellows are reading

Feature 26 Mar 2025

Reading time

Five minutes

Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure that AI Works for Us

Book author: Gary Marcus
Reviewed by Tania Duarte

If you need a succinct, digestible primer on the background and performance of generative technologies within wider artificial intelligence (AI) research and development, this is it.

Gary Marcus’s blog commentary on the mind-boggling series of events in the two years since the launch of ChatGPT has been an invaluable source of information and sanity. He has pulled no punches in calling out overinflated claims about the promise of generative AI, and his position as a tech entrepreneur, cognitive scientist and researcher has given credibility to his warnings on the risks and harms caused by the inappropriate and unchecked use of generative AI.

This book distils many of his blogs on a wide range of topics such as disinformation, market manipulation, misinformation, nonconsensual deepfakes, accelerating crime, cybersecurity and bioweapons, bias and discrimination, privacy, intellectual property taken without consent, overreliance on unreliable systems and environmental costs.

Marcus places these risk examples in the context of how we arrived at this “perfect storm of corporate irresponsibility, widespread deployment, lack of adequate regulation and inherent unreliability”. He also pithily documents a playbook of big tech manipulation techniques, which should be required reading for anyone involved or invested in democratic processes, which Marcus shows are being replaced by techno-authoritarianism. “Already some of the big technology companies are making some of the most important decisions humanity ever faced – on their own without consultation with the rest of us.”

Marcus concludes by laying out steps to a “positive tech future”, including reminding us that we are not all passive passengers on the journey. It left me wondering, though, if, given his analysis, it is really possible to ‘tame’ Silicon Valley without first tackling the economic systems and ideologies which support and sustain it.

Tania Duarte is a leader of the RSA Responsible Artificial Intelligence Network.

A book titled "Lead with Confidence" by Jenny Jarvis with a beige background. The cover features a silhouette of a woman holding a briefcase, standing in a confident pose. Subtext: Essential skills to succeed as a female leader. Yellow background.

Lead with Confidence: Essential Skills and Strategies to Succeed and Shine as a Female Leader

Book author: Jenny Jarvis
Reviewed by James Watson-O’Neill

Somehow, Jenny Jarvis has managed in her book not only to bring together most of the modern intelligence on leadership, but to make it universally digestible in just 200 pages. While there is some theory here from others, Jarvis is a formidable and experienced leader in her own right, and she doesn’t stint on sharing the lessons she has learned, bringing a unique dimension to the points she makes in this excellent book.

I found the focus on women’s journeys in leadership fascinating. I’ve heard many people discuss, for example, the pros and cons of ‘servant leadership’ versus ‘transformational leadership’, but I have never been prompted to consider what it’s like for women, specifically, to adopt these different approaches and how the hurdles or considerations might be different for them. I doubt I’m alone in not having had that experience or being nudged out of my patriarchal comfort zone, and it’s an experience I hope many others will have while reading.

Jarvis offers her own practical advice, including a brilliant toolkit of 40 individual tools for readers to dive into. Guidance from other leaders is also peppered throughout, including these wise words from Helen Roberts, co-founder of Talented Women, “… avoid the curse of comparison, find the unique strengths that

you bring into the world and harness those. When we see the world through that lens it’s amazing the opportunities it opens up.”

There is a humility and strength that shines through in the writing, and I hope Jarvis writes a lot more. I’ll be reading every book she publishes, and I’ll be giving copies of this important book to many of my friends and colleagues.

James Watson-O’Neill OBE is Chief Executive of the disability charity Sense and a Non-Executive Director at South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust.

Many of the books featured in Journal reviews are available to borrow at the RSA Library. As a Fellow, you can check out up to five books at a time for a three-week loan period.