Some tout AI’s boosted productivity, accelerated R&D, and better healthcare delivery, or warn it will kill jobs, worsen inequality and pose ethical and existential risks. Andrea Komlosy, Sami Mahroum, Stan Matwin, and Gabriela Ramos talk the AI revolution that is already upon us.

Big tech companies pursue marketing strategies that overpromise the benefits of AI products, while understating the risks of failure. Implicit in their best-case scenarios is an emphasis on originality over reliability. Novelty may well appeal to enthusiastic early adopters of run-of-the-mill consumer products, it has gained less purchase in healthcare. Most patients are reluctant to serve as guinea pigs.

The biggest change that AI will bring concerns employment. If AI technologies can deliver most needed goods and services at less cost, why spend precious time laboring? The question for a fully automated future is whether jobs can be delinked from incomes, and incomes delinked from consumption.