The Handover

”[W]itty and refined … Runciman’s basic argument, which unfolds in the elegantly shaggy manner of a Peripatetic seminar, is that the alignment problem is not in fact an anomaly, and that the coming singularity might best be historicized as the Second Singularity… . he turns a standard argumentative form on its head. It’s not that we can look to the past to help us solve the alignment problems of the future. It’s that the alignment problems of the future help clarify our existing sense that everything is intractable and wrong… . Runciman’s point is that the alliance between even a democratic government and a safe-ish A.I. could derail civilization.” – Gideon Lewis-Kraus - New Yorker“Ingenious … a well-informed and provocative read about the essence of political power.” – John Thornhill - Financial Times”[A] searching meditation on creeping dehumanization … Runciman’s approach to these issues is less technological than social and psychological … The result is a shrewd and stimulating look at society’s drive toward an inhuman perfection.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review“A thoughtful, learned contribution to the fevered conversation now surrounding AI.” – Kirkus Reviews“Amid a headlong international panic about a looming robot insurrection, David Runciman offers a searching history of earlier takeovers by other artificial creatures of our own making—states and corporations—and a stirring call for a new and fortified commitment to all that is human.” – Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States“David Runciman is always fascinating.” – Adam Tooze“One of the great modern writers of democracy.” – Anne Applebaum“Surely one of the most luminously intelligent [writers] on politics to have been published for many years.” – New Statesman (UK)

David Runciman is professor of politics at Cambridge University. He is the author of seven previous books, including The Confidence Trap and How Democracy Ends. He lives in Cambridge, UK.