The Handover (Hardback)
How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs
Buy from
Does it matter if we are ceding power to AI? Especially if we have been there before.
'The Singularity' is what Silicon Valley calls the idea that, eventually, we will be overrun by machines that are able to take decisions and act for themselves. What no one says is that it happened before.
A few hundred years ago, humans started building the robots that now rule our world. They are called states and corporations: immensely powerful artificial entities, with capacities that go far beyond what any individual can do, and which, unlike us, need never die.
They have made us richer, safer and healthier than would have seemed possible even a few generations ago - and they may yet destroy us. The Handover distils over three hundred years of thinking about how to live with artificial agency.
The Handover (Ebook)
How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs
Buy from
Does it matter if we are ceding power to AI? Especially if we have been there before.
'The Singularity' is what Silicon Valley calls the idea that, eventually, we will be overrun by machines that are able to take decisions and act for themselves. What no one says is that it happened before.
A few hundred years ago, humans started building the robots that now rule our world. They are called states and corporations: immensely powerful artificial entities, with capacities that go far beyond what any individual can do, and which, unlike us, need never die.
They have made us richer, safer and healthier than would have seemed possible even a few generations ago - and they may yet destroy us. The Handover distils over three hundred years of thinking about how to live with artificial agency.
The Handover (Audiobook)
How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs
Buy from
Distinguished author and podcast host returns to read his next big work - asking what happens when we cede power to artificial structures, whether it's AI algorithms or the states that rule us all...
'The Singularity' is what Silicon Valley calls the idea that, eventually, we will be overrun by machines that are able to take decisions and act for themselves. What no one says is that it happened before.
A few hundred years ago, humans started building the robots that now rule our world. They are called states and corporations: immensely powerful artificial entities, with capacities that go far beyond what any individual can do, and which, unlike us, need never die.
They have made us richer, safer and healthier than would have seemed possible even a few generations ago – and they may yet destroy us. The Handover distils over three hundred years of thinking about how to live with artificial agency.
Reviews for The Handover
Tim Adams Guardian
Jason Cowley Sunday Times
Blake Smith Literary Review
Sherelle Jacobs Telegraph
Financial Times
Observer
Australian
David Runciman
David Runciman is Professor of Politics at Cambridge University and the author of many books about politics, including The Politics of Good Intentions (2006), Political Hypocrisy (2008) and The Confidence Trap (2013). He writes regularly about politics and current affairs for a wide range of publications including the London Review of Books.
Politics is the first book in Profile's new Ideas in Profile series.
Related books
Confronting Leviathan
David Runciman
A primer on political theory from bestselling author and host of Talking Politics David Runciman
Where Power Stops
David Runciman
David Runciman grapples with how character defines and limits the holders of the highest offices in the UK and America
How Democracy Ends
David Runciman
All political systems come to an end, even democracies – David Runciman shows us how to recognise the signs and how to think about what might come nex…
Politics: Ideas in Profile
David Runciman
An accessible introduction to politics from David Runciman, Professor of Politics at Cambridge University. The first title in the IDEAS IN PROFILE ser…