The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs

An eminent political thinker uses our history with states and corporations—“artificial agents” to which we have granted immense power—to predict how AI will remake society.

Much has been written about the arrival of artificial intelligence, but according to political philosopher David Runciman, we’ve been living with AI for 300 years—because states and corporations are robots, too. In this mind-bending work, Runciman explains the modern world through the history of the “artificial agents” we created to rescue us from our all-too-human limitations. From the United States and the United Kingdom to the East India Company, Standard Oil, Facebook, and Alibaba, states and corporations have gradually, and then much more rapidly, taken over the planet. They have helped to conquer poverty and eliminate disease, but also unleashed global wars and environmental degradation. And as Runciman argues, the interactions among states, corporations, and thinking machines will determine our future. With uncommon clarity and verve, The Handover will forever change how we understand the history of the modern world as well as the immense challenges on the horizon.