Scepticism about the disruptive capacity of AI is understandable, but we should also be wary of wishful thinking; the downside risk is significant enough that it's worth taking seriously.

Just because you have not been radicalised, it doesn’t mean you are not being manipulated.

Brexit could never work, because there was no consensus among ‘Leavers’ of what they were seeking to achieve. Not only were their objectives not aligned, they were fundamentally opposed on many issues.

Ambient pessimism is so pervasive that our society’s problems can seem intractable, but this fatalism can become a self-fulfilling prophecy that puts democracy itself at risk.

Tristan Harris, a former Google engineer who now advocates for ethical social media algorithms, coined the term “race to the bottom of...