A tech expert’s dire warnings of a bleak dystopian future

Xi Jinping: pushing ahead with China’s Social Credit System

Technology: The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity; By Amy Webb; PublicAffairs Books, €16.10

Imagine this scenario. The year is 2069, and China has become the world’s only cyber-power. Climate change and overpopulation are destroying the planet’s resources, so Beijing uses artificial intelligence to create a virus that can wipe out the United States and its allies (presumably including Ireland).

“Annihilation by AI is slow and ...