This beautiful map shows everything that powers an Amazon Echo, from data mines to lakes of lithium

<em>Anatomy of an AI system: a map of the many processes — extracting material resources, data, and human labor — that make an Amazon Echo work</em>.

That the modern world is a complex place will not have escaped your notice.

We are all dimly, unsettlingly aware that our lives are enmeshed in systems we can't fully comprehend. The last meal you ate probably contained produce grown in another country that was harvested, processed, packaged, shipped, then sold to you. The phone in your hand is the end-product of an even more convoluted chain; one that relies on human labor from mines in Africa, assembly lines in China, and standing desks in San Francisco.

Explaining how these systems connect and the effect they have on the world is not an easy task. But it's what professors Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler have attempted to do in a new artwork and essay, unveiled last Friday at the...

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