Machine learning algorithms are opaque, difficult to audit, unconstrained by ethics , and there’s always the possibility they’ll do the unthinkable when facing the unexpected. But that’s true of most our society’s code base, and, in a way, they are the most secure part of it, because we haven’t talked ourselves yet into a false sense of security about them.

Mass technological unemployment is seen by some as a looming concern, but there are signs we’re already living in an era of mass technological underemployment. It’s not just an intermediate phase: its politics are toxic, it increases inequality, and it’s very difficult to get out of.

Blockchains aren’t primarily financial tools. They are a political technology, and their natural field of application is the developing world.

I seldom know who’s paying me or what they do; only my few friends lucky enough to have jobs do. My phone will buzz, and if I bid low enough I’ll get to do things that will feel like isolated musical notes, meaningless on their own, in places that sometimes will appear later in the news in ways I won’t be able to relate to my own actions but also won’t try to.

Dusk is coming and walking at night is no longer allowed, but the children still loiter near the black windowless building that looks like a tombstone for a giant or a town. A year ago most of their parents worked there, their hands the AI-controlled manipulators of the self-managed warehouse, but since then artificial hands have become good enough, and no more than a dozen humans tarnish the algorithmic purity of the logistics hub.

His job is not to press the button. When he fails at his job, people don’t die.

We still have a responsibility to prevent the ethical misuse of new technologies, as well as helping make their impact on human welfare a positive one. But we now have a more fundamental challenge: to help defend the very concept and practice of the measurement and analysis of quantitative fact.

Three minutes ago you were in a traffic jam, one of dozens of drivers impatiently waiting for their cars to reboot and shake off whatever piece of malware had infected them through the city network. Now you’re moving.

The thing is, we’re all naughty. The specifics of what counts as “wrong” depend on the context, but there isn’t anybody on Earth so boring that haven’t done or aren’t doing something they’d rather not be known worldwide.

At the intersection of cryptocurrencies and the “gig economy” lies the prospect of almost self-contained shadow economies with their own laws and regulations, vast potential for fostering growth, and the possibility of systematic abuse.