It’s called Artificial Intelligence as a Service, and it’s the AI of our near future. It’s practical, easy to use, and available to all: just like electricity. It seems to be a revolution, but the debate is raging, and many are starting to push back against it. The doomsayers on one side – warning against the risks of unbridled growth of AI, and the ultra-optimists on the other – such as American entrepreneur Marc Andreessen and his “Techno-Optimist Manifesto”. It might seem impossible to balance out relentless technological acceleration against the containment of AI’s uncountable permutations, but this is exactly what we’ll need to do if we want the thinking machines to be a new lightbulb that illuminates our planet, rather than a new doomsday device which could destroy it. The audio insert you hear in this episode is taken from The Matrix, a 1999 film directed by Sister Wachowski and produced by Warner Bros, available on Netflix.