REUTERS

If medieval advances in the plough didn’t lift Europe’s peasants out of poverty, it was largely because their rulers took the wealth generated by the new gains in output and used it to build cathedrals instead.

Economists say something similar could happen with artificial intelligence (AI) if it enters our lives in such a way that the touted benefits are enjoyed by the few rather than the many.

“AI has got a lot of potential - but potential to go either way,” argues Simon Johnson, professor of global economics and management at MIT Sloan School of Management.

“We are at a fork in the road.”

Backers of AI predict a productivity leap that will generate wealth and improve living standards. Consultancy McKinsey in June estimated it could add between $14 trillion and $22 trillion of value annually - that upper figure being roughly the current size of the US economy.

Some techno-optimists go further, suggesting that, along with robots, AI is the technology that will finally free humanity from humdrum tasks and launch us into lives of more creativity and leisure.

Yet worries abound about its impact on livelihoods, including its potential to destroy jobs in all kinds of sectors - witness the strike in July by Hollywood actors who fear being made redundant by their AI-generated doubles.