Moguls extol the fruits of artificial intelligence, but seek to hide its science from public view<\/p>\n
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, HG Wells published a novel about the possibilities of an even greater conflagration. The World Set Free<\/em><\/a> imagines, 30 years before the Manhattan Project, the creation of atomic weapons that allow \u201ca man [to] carry about in a handbag an amount of latent energy sufficient to wreck half a city\u201d. Global war breaks out, leading to an atomic apocalypse. It takes the \u201cestablishment of a world government\u201d to bring about peace.<\/p>\n What concerned Wells was not simply the perils of a new technology, it was also the dangers of democracy. Wells\u2019 world government was not created through democratic will but imposed as a benign dictatorship. \u201cThe governed will show their consent by silence,\u201d England\u2019s King Egbert menacingly remarks. For Wells, the \u201ccommon man\u201d was \u201ca violent fool in social and public affairs<\/a>\u201d. Only an educated, scientifically minded elite could \u201csave democracy from itself\u201d.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Moguls extol the fruits of artificial intelligence, but seek to hide its science from public view In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, HG Wells published a novel about the possibilities of an even greater conflagration. The World Set Free imagines, 30 years before the Manhattan Project, the creation of atomic weapons … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}