We are creating an intelligence that is external to humans and housed in the virtual economy. A succession of technologies, the Internet, the cloud, big data, robotics, machine learning and now artificial intelligence are driving a digital economic revolution. This is bringing us into a new economic era, a distributive one, where different rules apply.
This article explores the ways new technologies are changing the economy and considers whether the revolution they are causing is slowing or is persistent and deep. It considers societal questions such as privacy and how we will find meaning in a society where jobs, a huge source of meaning, are scarce.
