Lecture 19
The Future of AI Governance
Outlook
This session explores a range of plausible futures for AI, including dystopian outcomes such as existential risk, utopian promises like disease eradication, and more grounded scenarios where AI progresses incrementally as a general-purpose technology. We will examine how embedded technical uncertainties in modelling ethics in code and interpretability complicate our future. One focal point will be the idea of AI as a "normal" technology — neither apocalyptic nor revolutionary, but powerful and socially embedded — alongside contrasting visions that frame AI as fundamentally transformative or dangerous. We will reflect on the role of public imagination, risk narratives, and democratic legitimacy in shaping AI's future.