Why Technology Favors Tyranny

Even in mature democracies, an increasing number of voters are supporting populist and authoritarian alternatives to liberal democracy. Today’s disruptive technologies are one reason why people are becoming disillusioned with a political and economic system that used to promise ever-growing prosperity and individual empowerment. Rapid advances in fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) are making ordinary people feel increasingly irrelevant. In 2017, Google’s AlphaZero – which wasn’t human-programmed, but used machine-learning techniques to teach itself chess in just four hours – defeated world computer chess champion Stockfish...