Despite its hype, AI is just a means to economic resilience
To survive the shift from winner-takes-all capitalism to true sustainability, the learning curve is steep. AI is just the latest tool to help us climb it
At the same time, aspirations such as dealing with climate change appear to be going nowhere. Who cares about net zero when you can bomb your way to more oil and gas? Why invest in stocks that are green and inclusive when you can generate easy returns with oil and gas, defence and tech that makes weapons more lethal or accurate?
Only 18 per cent of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals are on track to be achieved by the target of 2030. The reason for this lack of progress is the inability of governments and communities to translate these aspirations into concrete programmes that deliver visible impact on climate goals or the well-being of people and the planet.
The linear, optimising logic of science offers the comfortable idea that the future is predictable. Now we must confront a future of unknown unknowns. Except for the ageing survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, no one else has experienced the horror of nuclear warfare. The deranged leaders of our day might just press the nuclear button to send us all into mutually assured destruction.