Fears about how robots might transform our lives have been a staple of science fiction for decades. In the 1940s, when widespread interaction between humans and artificial intelligence still seemed a distant prospect, Isaac Asimov posited his famous Three Laws of Robotics, which were intended to keep robots from hurting us. The first – “a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm” – followed from the understanding that robots would affect humans via direct interaction, for good and for ill. Think of classic sci-fi depictions: C-3PO and R2-D2 working with the Rebel Alliance to thwart the Empire in Star Wars, or HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ava from Ex Machina plotting to murder their ostensible masters. But these imaginings were not focused on AI’s broader and potentially more significant social effects – the ways AI could affect how humans interact with one another.

Radical innovations have previously transformed the way humans live together, of course. The advent of cities sometime between 5000 and 10,000 years ago meant a less nomadic existence and a higher population density. We adapted individually and collectively (for instance, we may have evolved resistance to infections made more likely by these new circumstances). More recently, the invention of technologies including the printing press, the telephone and the internet revolutionised how we store and communicate information.

Atlantic