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Bidding Farewell To Dystopia
The Wall Street Journal|January 28, 2025
How does it feel to live through the birth of a transformative technology? Historically, the experience has proved unnerving. While technologies like the printing press, the power loom, the telephone and the automobile would ultimately change the world for the better, doomsayers at the time of their first appearance focused on what could go wrong.
- David A. Shaywitz
Bidding Farewell To Dystopia

Superagency

By Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato Authors Equity, 288 pages, $32

The telephone, for instance, was viewed as a threat to in-person relationships, while cars were seen as a lure to profligate men, who would blow their money on a fancy new car and neglect to save up for family life.

Today a powerful new technology-artificial intelligenceis again stirring up fears and finding resonance in dystopian narratives from "1984" to "Terminator." In "Superagency," Reid Hoffman, with the journalist Greg Beato, seeks to reset our reflexively pessimistic framing.

"What if every child on the planet suddenly has access to an AI tutor that is as smart as Leonardo da Vinci and as empathetic as Big Bird?" he asks.

This story is from the January 28, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

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This story is from the January 28, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

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