Answering questions at a conference recently on the implications of artificial intelligence, I realised there was only one answer to all of them: things could go very well, or alternatively very badly. We don’t know which.
Could AI move us into a golden age of medical discoveries with new cures for terrible diseases? Yes, absolutely it could. Or could it be used to create deadly pathogens that wipe most of us out instead? Er, possibly. Might it lead to breakthroughs in developing nuclear fusion and thereby save the planet? Yes, let’s hope so. But could it consume so much energy in vast data centres that climate change gets even more out of control? Yes, that too.
We could make a long list of such questions. AI might lead to an enhancement of human intelligence that leads us to a more enlightened world or it might lead to millions of individuals being radicalised by bots into committing acts of hatred and terror. It could help protect freedom or it might be the perfect tool of dictators. It could be used to assist diplomacy or it could take decisions about peace and war out of human control. No wonder one of the great authorities on AI, Professor Erik Brynjolfsson of Stanford University, said last year “This could be the best decade in history — or the worst”.
Next week we will celebrate the new calendar year but most people have not yet adjusted to entering a new age, in which we must prepare for the world to get dramatically better or catastrophically worse, without knowing which. This is not just because of technological change but also rapid changes in finance, geopolitics and demography. The huge growth of crypto, for instance, could lead to an explosion of wealth and spending power or a spectacular financial crash. US-China relations could stabilise or collapse into conflict over Taiwan with devastating economic impact. The doubling of the population of Africa by mid-century could be a huge opportunity for the world or a disaster with migration flows that hand all of Europe to the far right.
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Wherever you look, you can see people struggling with this extreme uncertainty. The human brain likes confident predictions. Boards of directors and cabinets of ministers take decisions based entirely on forecasts that are becoming less useful. The Bank of England is being criticised for de-emphasising a “central forecast” of inflation and growth in favour of alternative scenarios based on unexpected events. Analysts are upset because they like to see one main forecast. But what if, rationally, there isn’t one?
Do we just despair that we don’t know what will happen next? No, we need a new mindset, in which we adjust to living in a new age that requires us to think differently. As an author of books about the 18th century, I often think of where we would be now, in a book about our own times. Chapter one would cover the Cold War, 1945-89, a time of tension and ideological struggle, but with great social and economic progress. It might be called “Danger, but with equilibrium”.
Chapter two was the wonderful period from 1990 when, in both slogans and reality, things could only get better. Globalisation arrived and liberal democracy was triumphant. Reason, tolerance and prosperity seemed entrenched for ever. It could be called “Excitement, with the illusion of a new equilibrium”.
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Those of us who lived through those two periods have been the luckiest generation ever to have lived. We missed the Second World War, survived the Cold War and then prospered in the exciting times that followed. But now we are living in a new chapter, which I would call “Danger and Excitement, with no equilibrium”. The next generation will be living in the most exciting time ever to have been alive but the most dangerous time since 1945. Welcome to chapter three of the history of our world.
It is the most exciting time to be alive because we are close to breakthroughs of which earlier generations could only dream, in new medicines, materials and energy sources. But it is dangerous because we are daily more at risk of cyberattack, political extremism, social discontent, climate disasters or simply being left behind in a world that moves on without us. Countries, companies and individuals should therefore be ready for their situation to get much better or much worse.
That obviously starts with being more resilient to shocks but if we just hunker down in fear we will miss all the benefits of the exciting new developments. The only way to succeed in this new chapter of history is to become more resilient by constantly reinventing ourselves. For instance, a company might decide to stockpile advanced semiconductors to be more resilient in the event of a crisis in Taiwan. But real resilience would come from inventing a new way of making the product, without needing supplies from Taiwan. Impossible, many manufacturers would say. Yet if you were a Chinese company, you would already have had to do that.
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Of all countries, China is the most clear-sighted about building resilience through reinvention, setting out over a long period to dominate new industries like electric vehicles, control essential supplies such as rare earths and find new ways of advancing AI on its own terms. But most of us do not want to live in a totalitarian state. Here, each of us, in our businesses and communities, must find the way to greater resilience by reinventing ourselves for a new chapter.
Many companies are already doing this, as they experiment with AI. So are many young people, who will increasingly need more than one area of skill or knowledge, as they are in the front line of the upheavals to come. But governments can be slow to adapt, having developed tax and welfare systems, along with low levels of defence spending, that were suitable for those easy times in our chapter two. Any change becomes a long, difficult slog, as Britain’s latest government has discovered.
It might help political leaders if they made the case that we are in a new period of history. A resilient country now needs strong defences, and to possess essential supplies and capabilities to withstand emergencies. But it also needs the start-ups, risk-taking, new technologies and openness to the most brilliant people that provide for reinvention. It needs a healthy population and to be highly creditworthy, as matters of priority.
The 2020s have provided ample evidence already — wars, pandemic disease, political upheaval and new forms of intelligence — that we have turned the page of a new chapter. We need to prepare for the best years, or the worst, at the same time. The beginning of 2026 will be a good time for all of us to ask ourselves whether we are doing that.