In another Cambridge Series session, Professor David Runciman, a Hay Festival favourite, will talk about his new book, The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs. In the book he traces over 300 years of thinking about the role of artificial entities, in the form of states and corporations and now AI, that are able to take decisions and act for themselves.
By placing AI in a broad historical context, Professor Runciman shows that the problems it throws up are not new, as newspaper headlines make them seem, and argues that in order to solve them we need to address the ways in which we have already handed over control to states and corporations. Professor Runciman will be talking to writer and journalist Sarfraz Manzoor.
David Runciman
David Runciman
Professor Runciman will also take part in the news review with author Lionel Shriver and American literature and culture specialist Professor Sarah Churchwell.
And he will join fellow academics Madhumita Murgia, Stuart Russell and Carissa Véliz in a panel discussion about how AI will affect humans with author Carl Miller.
Left to right, top to bottom: Carissa Véliz, Madhumita Murgia, Professor Runciman, Stuart Russell
Left to right, top to bottom: Carissa Véliz, Madhumita Murgia, Professor Runciman, Stuart Russell