Doom or Bloom
Question 1
What do you think AI means for our future—and why?
I see AI primarily as the automation of mental labor, part of a much longer history of technological change. Like earlier machinery, it will destroy some jobs, alter others and create new activities. That does not mean every displaced worker will benefit. When railways or electricity transformed economies, the outcomes depended on investment in skills, organizations and public infrastructure—not simply on the invention itself.
I am skeptical of the grand story that an inevitable march toward AGI will overturn everything. Much of the current investment looks speculative, and I expect that bubble to burst, although I would not pretend to know when. The more immediate questions concern practical tools: who owns them, what work they automate, whose cultural assumptions they reproduce, and how their energy and material costs compare with any efficiency gains.
AI should therefore be treated as public infrastructure and strictly regulated. This need not always mean public ownership; well-regulated private provision may work. But we cannot let an industry’s commercial roadmap decide society’s future. Systems that cheaply fabricate convincing information can damage the shared understanding on which democracy depends, while workplace automation can concentrate gains and impose losses on people with little bargaining power.
The future is consequently not contained inside the technology. AI could remove routine tasks and leave more room for creativity, or it could deepen inequality and precarious work. Which outcome prevails will depend on institutions, productive capabilities and democratic choices about the purposes the technology should serve.
