Could AI save the human race?

Two things are buzzing about in the air at the moment: decline and artificial intelligence. Douglas Murray and Louise Perry have written recently in these pages about social desuetude: Murray on the five million or so Britons who seem to have opted out altogether of economic activity; Perry on the worrying lack of new humans being born. Could AI get us out of these holes? 

It’s tempting to scoff at new tech and the alternating warnings and promises about what’s coming down the line. Many of us in the demographic bulge of older citizens will recall the heated clamour of the early 80s. We remember how the auguries about the microchip revolution turned sour when we found that toilets still had to be cleaned and bins still had to be emptied. A common meme contrasts the promised Jetsons-style future of flying cars and ultra-gadget convenience with the realities of twenty-first century living.