Humanity's Thousand Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

Intelligence Squared · Jul 31, 2023 · 39m

In the Middle Ages, agricultural advancements enriched the nobility and the Church, which used the wealth generated to build themselves magnificent houses and cathedrals, while the peasants went hungry. The early years of England’s industrial revolution brought stagnant incomes for the working class. In recent decades technological advances have put untold amounts of wealth into the hands of the 0.1 per cent, while today, the sudden leap forward in artificial intelligence is threatening jobs and democracy through automation, data collection, and surveillance. But does it have to be this way?…