Yes it is a brave new world: The economic and technological singularities – and how to survive them
Calum Chace, journalist, and best-selling author
In the next few decades, Calum predicts, the world will face two singularities – points at which the rules we’ve lived by till now will simply break down. The first is economic, when machines take over (most) human work, challenging our ideas of personal worth and social cohesion. Some believe capitalism and liberal democracy will not survive it. The second is technological, when machines will relegate humans to the position of second most intelligent life form on the planet.
While many simply bewail this future, Calum isn’t among them. He’ll put forward a case that we can not only survive the singularities, but positively thrive in the new world they usher in. He’ll examine how political and economic systems can be reshaped, how businesses and organisations can transform their missions, and how human beings can achieve far greater self-realisation in a technologically enriched world.
Calum is a best-selling author on artificial intelligence, focusing on its medium and long-term impacts on individuals, societies and economies. His latest non-fiction book, Artificial Intelligence and the Two Singularities, was published this year. His fiction work includes Pandora’s Brain, a techno-thriller about the first superintelligence. His AI-related blog pandoras-brain.com is a must-read for people interested in these issues, and he has a substantial following for his frequent (and frequently opinionated) tweets. His writing is informed by a thirty-year career in journalism and business, during which time he was a marketer, a strategy consultant and a CEO. A long time ago, he says, he studied philosophy at Oxford, where he discovered that the science fiction he had read all his life was actually philosophy in fancy dress.
