Every new technology has a tipping point, when it speeds towards ubiquity, changing the world as we once knew it. In the past six months, artificial intelligence, in its various forms, has crossed that threshold.

You can measure it in the billions of dollars being invested; the hope-tinged-with-fear decrees from presidents, prime ministers, Nobel laureates and even the pope.

It promises to be the most transformative technological change since the introduction of electricity, touching everyone and everything as “AI companies monetize the collective knowledge of the human race”.

It will challenge centuries-old notions of national sovereignty and human autonomy in ways not seen since imperial colonisation was at its peak.

Will Australia become, as the John Curtin Research Centre asked in its May review of AI, a “cloud hostage” – physically hosted, legally governed and operationally controlled from abroad? For most people, it still feels a bit abstract.

What does it mean when Demis Hassabis, the Nobel prize-winning founder of Google DeepMind, says it’s like the Industrial Revolution times 10, at 10 times the speed? Or Dario Amodi, head of Anthropic, declares half of all entry-level jobs will disappear in a few years?

Disruption, chaos, exploitation, mass unemployment and loss of sovereignty, or opportunity and transformation as once impossible problems are solved.

Last week, before Anthony........

© The Guardian