Category: Risk

AI – from ‘build, baby, build’ to ‘bust, baby, bust’?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business, Delivery, Information Technology, Leadership, Risk, Technology

Every Christmas/New Year period, the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme invites well known individuals to guest-edit the programme. Each guest focuses on a topic relevant to their interests, experience, and society. Two of the Christmas 2025 guests were inventor, engineer, and businessman Sir James Dyson and the AI pioneer and entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman.  The Badger was driving to visit relatives on the days they were guest-editing. He had the Today programme on the radio as background noise on both occasions. He turned the volume up when each man was interviewed because they were intelligent, impressive, and articulate individuals conveying enormous common-sense and objectivity, characteristics which seem in short supply today.

Their words resonated with the Badger. Sir James Dyson, for example, likes ‘doers’ rather than ‘talkers’, and Mustafa Suleyman spoke eloquently about AI and that it must be ‘a tool in the hands of and under the control of humans if it’s to benefit all of humankind’. There’s plenty of ‘talkers’ in the world, but it’s ‘doers’ like these two with vision, objectivity, commonsense, and a passion for humankind, rather than politicians, which have the greatest influence on the lives of most people. The Badger agrees that AI is a tool. There are plenty of ‘talkers’ concerned that humans would become subservient to AI, but if we let that happen then we only have ourselves to blame. There’s currently a huge ‘build, baby, build’ rush to construct new, giant, energy-hungry, AI data centres and to amass and use the chips and devices they need to function. Enormous sums are being spent around the world, the technology continues to advance way ahead of any regulation, and AI company stock market valuations are stratospheric. Having worked in IT during the dot.com era, the words of these two men made the Badger ponder more about the current AI ‘build, baby, build’ surge.

Four conclusions emerged. The first was that such surges often produce over-capacity and ‘bust, baby, bust’ outcomes (c.f. China’s property crash) with the bigger the boom, the deeper and longer the bust! The second was that AI is here to stay, but some huge AI companies will not survive even though the AI market bubble is not like the dot.com era when many companies with high valuations had no revenues. Inevitably, when investor appetite for speculative risk tightens for any reason, and it will, a painful correction will happen. The third was that eyebrows should be raised when tech companies arrange for the restart of shuttered nuclear facilities to provide electricity for their new data centres.   

The Badger’s last conclusion was that we should question whether the world’s leaders, including those of hyperscale global tech corporations, are the right kind of ‘doers’. Do they have objectivity, common-sense, and mankind’s well-being at heart, or are they just examples of Lord Acton’s 1887 line ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’? Whatever the answer, 2026 looks likely to be a troublesome year…

The imagination of children – Lego and AI…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Education, Information Technology, Learning, Lego, Risk, Toys

While returning home from a stroll through a glorious deciduous wood resplendent with Autumn colour, the Badger saw an interesting book in a charity shop window. He popped in and came out with a carrier bag half-full of Lego bricks of all shapes, sizes, colours, and types rather than the book! The Lego was in great condition at a bargain price and buying it for his grandson to play with when he visits seemed a no-brainer. On arriving home, the bag was emptied onto a table. There were standard bricks and bases, Technik bricks, wheels, motors, and arms, legs, torsos, heads, and hands from Lego figures, and much more. The Badger was hooked. He spent the rest of the afternoon using his imagination to produce a number of creative masterpieces! Indeed, everyday since, the Badger’s improved his masterpieces and created new ones. It’s addictive!

Lego empowers creativity, provides immediate gratification from having built something with your hands, and it helps to develop spatial reasoning, design thinking, and problem-solving. Furthermore, it encourages an understanding of mechanics through trial and error. It’s fun, educational, and great for kids (and adults) of all ages with building things often a collaborative and social activity. Kids, for example, learn from each other when they play with it together and when adults help them. Building Lego models together strengthens the bonds between individuals.

As the Badger built his own masterpieces, he remembered that Lego has been an excellent teaching aid at home and in education establishments for decades, as the recent announcement about a teenager building a robotic hand using Lego illustrates. It also struck him that Millennials were shaped by the emergence of the internet, Gen Z were moulded by social media’s evolution, and that Gen Alpha – his grandson’s generation – will be defined by the rapid expansion of AI use. The Badger senses a danger, however, that Gen Alpha may simply ask AI for ideas and instructions of what to build from a bag of bricks rather than use their own imagination and individuality to create masterpieces. Always inquisitive, the Badger asked CoPilot what could be built with a bag of mixed Lego bricks. It replied with ideas and instructions, and thus neatly illustrated that the danger of Gen Alpha outsourcing their imagination, creativity, and physical trial and error learning to AI is real.

A recent UK study found that ~22% of 8 to 12 year-old children already use generative AI tools, which – let’s remember – have not been designed from the outset with children in mind. Have the  lessons from social media’s impact on children been learned? The answer’s not obvious, which is why the Badger will be encouraging his grandson to produce his own Lego masterpieces without engaging in virtual world interactions. Another reason, of course, is that the Badger will be able to transfer knowledge and enjoy helping to build his creations too…

AI – A ‘Macbeth Moment’?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business Continuity, Information Technology, Leadership, Risk

The Badger was browsing in a shop when Hubble Bubble (Toil and Trouble) by Manfred Mann featured in the piped music. It struck a chord with the recent warnings by JP Morgan’s CEO, the Bank of England, and others, that an AI bubble could pop. Later that day, while clearing a cupboard, the Badger found his old school notes for Shakespeare’s Macbeth, part of the English Literature syllabus of the time. Scribbled notes about the three witches uttering ‘Double, double toil and trouble: fire burn and cauldron bubble’ caught his eye. The coincidental combination of the song title, these scribbles, and the AI warnings triggered some contemplation on the AI bubble.

During the dot.com debacle of the early 2000s, the Badger was a senior member of a UK, stock-exchange listed, IT services company. Such companies, investors believed, would benefit from the dot.com boom. The company’s share price thus rose ~tenfold before collapsing back to its original level when the market realised that dot.com companies were massively over-valued, and many had little real revenue let alone profit. For years following the crash, doing business in the IT sector was tough. The NASDAQ, for example, crashed from around 5000 to 1100 and it took ~15 years to recover. Many dotcoms disappeared, but the likes of Amazon, eBay, Google and others rose from the ashes to become the powerhouses of recovery. Having worked in IT throughout the debacle, the Badger’s instincts are alive to tech bubbles. Today they ring alarm bells.

Whether AI’s a market bubble that bursts, or a transformation that sticks, depends on whether company valuations are grounded in real, scalable, business fundamentals, or  speculative optimism. Either way, AI is unlike anything seen before, so when JP Morgan, the Bank of England, the World Economic Forum and others have some anxiety, then we should take note, especially as, for example, Nvidia, Anthropic, and OpenAI’s market values have risen many-fold in just two years. There’s unprecedented spending on computational infrastructure, massive bets on future productivity gains, and belief that AI will revolutionise everything. The actual return  on investment, however, has not been impressive so far. When the UK National Cyber Security Centre advises organisations to have plans to operate their business without access to computers following a cyber-attack, the hype of an AI dominated future seems a little questionable.

The Badger’s learned from his dot.com era experience that it’s prudent to be wary. If market valuations become detached from fundamentals, or the availability of computational infrastructure stalls, or the promised productivity gains for organisations don’t materialise, or geopolitically driven export controls cause disruption, then any AI bubble will pop triggering a huge domino effect. AI is facing a ‘Macbeth moment’. Witches making prophecies surround the bubbling AI cauldron uttering ‘double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble’. In the play, Macbeth felt a sense of foreboding…as do more and more of today’s leaders….

Cyber security – a ‘Holy Grail’?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business, Information Technology, Online Safety, Online Services, Privacy and Surveillance, Public safety, Risk, Security

King Arthur was a legendary medieval king of Britain. His association with the search for the ‘Holy Grail’, described in various traditions as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers and, sometimes, providing eternal youth or infinite sustenance, stems from the 12th century. Since then, the search has become an essential part of Arthurian legend, so much so that Monty Python parodied it in their 1975 film. Indeed, it’s common for people today to refer to any goal that seems impossible to reach as a ‘Holy Grail’. It’s become a powerful metaphor for a desired, ultimate achievement that’s beyond reach.

Recently, bad cyber actors – a phrase used here to refer collectively to wicked individuals, gangs, and organisations, regardless of their location, ideology, ultimate sponsorship or specific motives – have caused a plethora of highly disruptive incidents in the UK. Incidents at the Co-op, Marks & Spencer, Harrods, JLR, and  Kido  have been high profile due to the nature and scale of the impact on the companies themselves, their supply chains, their customers, and also potentially the economy. Behind the scenes (see here, for example) questions are, no doubt, being asked not only of the relevant IT service providers, but also more generally about how vulnerable we are to cyber security threats.

While taking in the colours of Autumn visible through the window by his desk, the Badger found himself mulling over what these incidents imply in a modern world reliant on the internet, online services, automation and underlying IT systems. As the UK government’s ‘Cyber security breaches survey – 2025’ shows, the number of bad cyber actor incidents reported is high, with many more going unreported. AI, as the National Cyber Security Centre  indicates, means that bad actors will inevitably become more effective in their intrusion operations, and so we can expect an increase in the frequency and intensity of cyber threats in the coming years. The musing Badger, therefore, concluded that organisations need to be relentlessly searching for a ‘Holy Grail’ to protect their operations from being vulnerable to serious cyber security breaches. As he watched a few golden leaves flutter to the ground, the Badger also concluded that in a world underpinned by complex IT, continuous digital evolution, and AI, this ‘Holy Grail’ will never be found. But that doesn’t mean organisations should stop searching for it!

These damaging incidents highlight again that cyber security cannot be taken for granted, especially when the tech revolution of recent decades has enabled anyone with a little knowledge and internet access to be a bad cyber actor. The UK government’s just announced the introduction of  digital ID by 2029. Perhaps they have found a ‘Holy Grail’ that guarantees not only the security of personal data, but also that its IT programmes will deliver on time and to their original budget? Hmm, that’s very doubtful…

Youngsters outsourcing their mental effort to technology…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Change, Education, Human Resources, Information Technology, Risk, social media, Wellbeing

Live Aid happened on Saturday 13th July 1985. If you were a young adult then, do you remember what you were doing when the concert happened? Were you there? Did you watch it live on television? The Badger had his hands full that day doing some home renovations while having a one-year-old baby in the house. He thus only saw snippets of the televised live concert. Last weekend, however, he made up for it by watching the highlights broadcast to celebrate the concert’s 40th anniversary.

Watching the highlights brought home why the music at the concert has stood the passage of time. It was delivered by talented people with great skill and showmanship without today’s cosseting production techniques and tech wizardry. What struck a chord most, however, was the enthusiasm of the Wembley Stadium crowd, the vast majority of whom are now grandparents in, or facing, retirement! People in that crowd had none of the internet access, smartphones, or online services we take for granted today. In 1985 the UK’s first cellular telephone services were only just being introduced by Cellnet and Vodafone, and ‘home computing’ meant the likes of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the BBC Micro. A far cry from today! Furthermore, those in that crowd represent a generation that thought for themselves and didn’t have their minds dulled by reliance on digital technology and internet-based online services. Their grandchildren, on the other hand, only know life based around the internet, and they often seem oblivious to the likelihood that their reliance on online things like social media might be dulling their minds, nudging them towards a passivity of thought, and perhaps ultimately causing atrophy of their brain.  

Concern about technology dulling human minds isn’t new. In 370 BC, for example, Socrates worried that writing would erode a person’s memory!  With AI endlessly expanding, however, the potential for today’s youngsters to completely outsource mental effort to technology seems very real. More and more  scientific evidence shows  that while the human brain is highly adaptable, digital immersion changes attentiveness, the way we process information, and decision-making. Some brain functions weaken due to digital immersion, others evolve, but the Badger thinks that when our digital world provides instant answers, the joy and effort of discovery through independent thought is dwindling. Always available digital content at our fingertips means fragmented attention spans and contemplation and reflection taking a back seat,  especially for youngsters with no life-experience without today’s online world.

Watching the 40th anniversary highlights thus did more than provide a reminder of the great music of that day. It brought home the fact that today’s  grandparents have something precious – a lived experience of independent thought and contemplation without an overreliance on our digital world. It feels, however, that their grandchildren are progressively outsourcing their mental effort to ever more advanced digital technology which, this grandfather senses, doesn’t augur well for the human race…

Fuzzy information? Still make decisions…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business Continuity, Delivery, Information Technology, Leadership, Risk

Twenty years ago on the 7th July 2005, four suicide bombers targeted London’s public transport system during the morning rush hour. At 8:50am three bombs detonated within 50 seconds of each other on Underground trains at Aldgate, Edgeware Road, and Russell Square, and a fourth detonated an hour later on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. Almost 800 innocent people were injured and 52 lost their lives. The Badger remembers that day clearly. At the time of the bombing, he was attending a UK leadership meeting in his firms Great Marlborough Street office completely oblivious to unfolding events.

The UK CEO had started the meeting at 9:30am even though the UK Sales Director was absent and hadn’t called to say they’d be late. They eventually arrived at 10:20am,  perspiring heavily having walked from Waterloo because no Underground trains were running. They said ‘Something serious is happening. There’s sirens everywhere, the Underground isn’t running, and mobile phone networks aren’t working’. The room’s TV was tuned to a news channel, and everyone present scanned the internet, tried their Blackberry devices, and looked at their corporate emails for information. No one could connect to a mobile phone network. When news of the Tavistock Square bus explosion appeared on the TV  there was instant recognition that the meeting could not continue, not least because Tavistock Square was just a 4-minute walk from the company’s main London office housing some hundreds of staff.

The Badger, the company lead on business continuity crises, activated the company response to the unfolding event. The meeting room became a rudimentary crisis management centre. It’s tools were just a conference phone, laptops providing access to corporate email, the news channel on the TV, and Blackberry devices with, at best, intermittent mobile network connectivity. The Badger and a subset of his colleagues spent the next 10 hours in the room dealing with a maelstrom that involved monitoring the terror incident, mobilising business continuity contacts and processes, establishing the well-being of staff and visitors to the company’s London offices, ensuring the continuity of projects and services, making and communicating clear decisions relevant to clients, verifying the continuity of business operations, and dealing with the needs and well-being of staff.  

It was an intense day full of fuzzy, confusing, and often conflicting information. For the Badger and his colleagues, the experience reinforced the importance of having cool, unemotional heads to make decisions during crises, especially when information is highly fluid. It also reinforced that fuzzy, confusing, or conflicting information should not be used as an excuse for prevaricating on decision-making when there’s overwhelming pressure. Make a decision, move on, and change it if better information emerges was an important dynamic. We eventually went home exhausted having made many more good decisions than bad. It hadn’t been the routine day in the office the Badger had expected. It had been truly unforgettable….

Smartwatch, traditional watch, or both?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Online Services, Public safety, Risk, Security, Smart & New Technology, Smartwatches, Technology

Is there a smartwatch from the likes of Apple, Samsung, Huawei and others, on your wrist? A decade ago, smartwatches were essentially novelties for tech enthusiasts. Today they’re mainstream. In the ten years since Apple unveiled its first watch  they’ve become a popular, wrist-worn, command and control centres for time, date, productivity aids, communication, fitness and personal health.  Globally there are more than 450 million smartwatches in use, and the number is expected to rise to ~750 million by 2029. Many people are turning to smartwatches from traditional mechanical/ automatic watches because they do significantly more than just tell the time and their capabilities continue to expand as technology marches on.

So, does this mean the traditional wristwatch, which first appeared in the 19th century, will soon be obsolete? Many say yes, but the Badger thinks otherwise. A traditional mechanical/automatic watch performs its purpose of providing the time and date  extremely well. Accordingly, it’ll be around for many decades yet because it has design simplicity, is robust, doesn’t require frequent battery charging or software updates, and is immune to cyber threats. Traditional watches provide their core function – the time and date – in aesthetically pleasing hardware that can be chosen to suit any lifestyle or occasion. Many think that a traditional watch’s lack of connectivity to today’s online world is a disadvantage. On the contrary, the Badger thinks it’s an advantage.

Smartwatches, of course, come in many guises but one thing fundamentally drives their design, namely convenient access to the services and information that underpin the rhythm of life in the modern digital world. Their manufacturers routinely enhance their design, functionality, and usability as a wrist-based hub for time, date, and things like voice and message communication, activity and fitness tracking, and personal health monitoring and diagnostics. As a convenient computer on our wrists, however, they are yet another screen that grabs attention. They need regular battery recharges and software and security updates to protect against cyber threats. Like smartphones, there’s also a better model coming soon!

So, are smartwatches rendering traditional mechanical/automatic watches obsolete? No. Why not? Because most people today understand the dangers of the digital world, and they are increasingly aware from world events of the inconvenience and turmoil that can ensue when key energy, communication, and online infrastructure is damaged. Their smartwatch could be rendered useless in such circumstances, whereas a traditional mechanical or automatic watch will continue to deliver its core function, time and date, unabated. So don’t ditch your traditional watch for a smartwatch, have and use both (as the Badger does). You will then always be able to access the time and date on your wrist should a digital disaster occur. The obsolescence of traditional watches is a long way off because in the current world climate it’s prudent to have non-digital contingencies for unexpected digital difficulties…

Once upon a time there was the Strategic Defense Initiative (Starwars)…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Conflict, Defence, Information Technology, Intelligent machines, Risk, Satellites, Security, Space, Technology

There comes a time when a room at home needs a decorative refresh. That time recently came in the Badger household, and so he deployed his practical skills to refurbish the room himself. The project was planned, agreed with an important stakeholder (the wife), and fastidiously executed. The room’s now in the post-delivery phase with the small list of defects pointed out at acceptance by the important stakeholder now corrected. Painting walls listening to good music playing on the radio during the project proved a more satisfying experience than expected. On finishing one wall, and while stepping back admiring his handiwork, the Badger found himself listening to the broadcaster’s regular news bulletin and sighing deeply on hearing that President Trump had unveiled plans for a ~$175 billion US ‘Golden Dome’ missile defence system. Memories of President Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) came flooding back.

The goal of SDI was to develop a system that could intercept and destroy incoming nuclear missiles, effectively shielding the USA from a potential Soviet attack during the Cold War. Many dubbed it ‘Star Wars’ because of its proposed use of space-based technology. At the time, the Badger was working on the software design and development of a Relational Database Management System (RDMS) product – pretty cutting edge at the time. He remembers thinking that SDI would never come to fruition. Indeed, SDI itself was never fully realised, but its ideas have shaped military technology and policies in Missile and Space-based defence, Cybersecurity strategy, and International Collaboration ever since.

Rolling forward 40 years, the world is a quite different place geopolitically, technologically, economically, and militarily. Daily civilian and military life now depends on digital capabilities that didn’t exist in 1983, and continued rapid tech advances, innovation and AI are changing both domains at a rate never imagined just a few decades ago. Reagan’s SDI initiative and President Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ share some similarities, but whilst the available tech in 1983 meant the former’s space-based missile defence was largely theoretical, President Trump’s benefits from modern, real, sophisticated satellite, space, sensor, and missile technologies. ‘Golden Dome’ revives elements of SDI but it also suffers from some of the same challenges, particularly, around cost, scepticism about its effectiveness, and concern that it dramatically escalates the global arms race. It’s certain, however, that just as happened when SDI was announced in 1983, military and tech sector commercial organisations will be relishing the prospect of picking up ‘Golden Dome’ contracts regardless of whether its stated ambitions will ever fully come to fruition.

But why did the Badger sigh so deeply on hearing about ‘Golden Dome’ on the radio? It was simply an instant reaction to the feeling that it’s another step on the road to creating the Terminator film’s SKYNET system for real, and that our species seems intent on a path that can lead to eventual self-inflicted extinction.

VE Day, Gen-Z, resilience and preparedness…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Internet, Learning, Life, Online Services, Risk, Technology

Many have family members who lived through the violence and hardships of World War 2 as civilians or combatants. Their experiences shaped not only their own lives, but also the values they instilled in their children. The Badger’s father, for example, proudly served his country in the military and then worked hard to create a better life for his family once he was demobbed. He was the epitome of that ‘Keep calm and carry on’ and ‘There’s no such word as can’t, try!’ generation, and he brought his children up to embody discipline, standards, hard work, duty, calm objectivity, preparedness, and a sense of right and wrong. These instilled values have served the Badger well over the years. The 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE), a day which saw spontaneous rejoicing and street parties, is being celebrated on Thursday the 8th May 2025. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices and resilience of a WW2 generation, civilians and combatants, who resisted tyranny. It will be poignant for the Badger because his father, sadly no longer with us, was unable to celebrate on VE Day at the time.

Life is very different today, as the Badger explained to a couple of Generation Z digital natives last weekend. Homes in the 1940s  were different. The internet, social media, instant communication, music and video streaming, electronic games, smartphones, personal computers, online banking, online shopping, robots, and driverless cars were science fiction, and children played physical games that would make today’s health and safety coterie wince. The Gen-Z natives struggled to relate to how life functioned in the 1940s without digital technology. The Badger then asked them two questions – what would you do if a) the UK experienced an electricity blackout akin to that seen recently  on the Iberian peninsula, or b) cyber-attacks took out online and critical infrastructure services for a prolonged period. ‘We’ll get by until someone sorts things out’ was the glib response, although they had no real idea about how they would actually get by! This made the Badger wonder about the resilience of our completely digital-native Gen-Z generation. As individuals, perhaps we’ve all become complacent about the risks associated with our dependence on digital services.  

In fact, do you know how you would ‘keep calm and carry on’ if digital services suddenly disappeared for a prolonged period? Do you have any personal emergency measures or pack of essentials to fall back on if something catastrophic happened to the electricity grid? Individuals rarely consider such questions even though our digital world is highly complex and believing ‘it’ll never happen’ just reflects naivety. Without their tech will digital-native Gen-Z ever be as resilient, resourceful, and prepared to make sacrifices like those of the 1940s in really tough times? If the Badger’s conversation was anything to go by, the jury’s most definitely out…

AI – A Golden Age or a new Dark Age?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Automation, Change, Digital Transformation, Ethics & Regulation, Information Technology, Intelligent machines, Life, Risk, Technology

The Badger’s experimented with Microsoft’s Copilot for a while now, sometimes impressed, but often irritated when the tool ends its answer to a question by asking the user’s opinion on the underlying topic of the question. For example, the Badger asked Copilot ‘When will self-driving cars be the majority of vehicles in the UK?’  Copilot’s answer was sensible and distilled from quoted sources, but it ended with ‘What are your thoughts on self-driving cars? Do you think they’ll revolutionize transportation?’. The Badger wanted an answer to his question, not a conversation that will capture, store, and use his opinion for the tool’s own purpose. Responding with ‘None of your business’ gets the reply ‘Got it! If you have any other questions or need assistance with something else, feel free to ask. I’m here to help’. That last phrase should be supplemented with ‘and make money!

Overall, his experimentation has made him wonder if AI is leading to a new Golden Age for humanity, or a new Dark Age. So, what’s the answer? A new Golden Age, or a worrying Dark Age? AI and Machine Intelligence advocates, giant businesses investing huge amounts of money in the technology, and even governments with a ‘fear of missing out’, are quick to say it’s the former. The Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, isn’t so sure. He articulates the risks well, and he’s highlighted that the ability of AI to eventually wipe out humanity isn’t inconceivable. Listening to him interviewed recently on the Today programme, BBC Radio 4’s flagship news and current affairs programme, struck a chord. It made the Badger realise that such concerns are valid, and that a Dark Age is a possibility.

So where does the Badger stand on the Golden or Dark Age question? Well, the last 25 years has made us believe tech-driven change is a good thing, but that premise should be challenged. New technology may drive change, but it doesn’t necessarily drive progress because it’s politics that really determines whether change makes people better off overall. Politicians, however, have struggled woefully to deal with tech-driven change and the new problems it’s created for society so far this century. There’s little sign this is changing for AI. Humans are fallible and can make poor judgements, but if we become reliant on AI to make choices for us, then there’s a real danger that our confidence and capacity to make our own independent decisions will be lost.

The Badger’s answer is thus nuanced. A Golden Age will unfold in areas where AI is a tool providing a tangible benefit under direct human control, but if AI is allowed to become completely autonomous and more intelligent than humans, then a Dark Age is inevitable. Why? Because things with greater overall intelligence always control things of lower overall intelligence. Can you think of an example where the reverse is true?