I wouldn't take that as a given. We don't know how AI will play out or how it will transform our lives. We could look to the industrial revolution to make a prediction, but the political, social and technological conditions today are hard to compare with those of Victorian England.

What AI lacks, I think, is a positive vision. The narrative is dictated by a small Silicon Valley subculture that unfortunately also happens to be a doomsday cult, and it is amplified by a media landscape hungry for the next clickbait headline.

By contrast, people in China seem a lot more relaxed and optimistic about AI. There are worries there too, but not to the same extent as in the West.

> By contrast, people in China seem a lot more relaxed and optimistic about AI

People in China also seem relaxed and optimistic about being slaves to the digital panopticon.

It would be interesting to compare the sentiment about AI with sentiment about computers in the 1950s. I think it reflects the stress of precarious employment more than anything else.