I’m a doom scroller — I wrote “Peak Japan,” remember? — so I’ve been captivated by “Europe 2031,” a speculative future history that predicts the subjugation and virtual collapse of Europe because of its failure to keep pace in artificial intelligence.

Failure to nurture European champions and safeguard its technological sovereignty will mean that “Europe will lose the ability to shape its own future (and) will end up economically and politically sidelined, with values we cannot defend, social welfare systems we can no longer fund, risks we cannot address and a Union that cannot hold.”

Written by Brussels-based think tankers and published in June, “Europe 2031” has galvanized conversations in Europe. The sense of urgency was intensified the day after publication when the U.S. announced that it would block foreign nationals from accessing Anthropic’s Fable, an AI platform for building and deploying advanced models. The announcement seemed to validate the scenario’s main thesis: Dependence on foreign technology is a threat to national security and prosperity.

It’s a brisk and bouncy tale, one that unfolds primarily through the eyes of Caroline Dubois, a (fictional) staffer on the European Commission’s trade directorate, with pointed asides from her pal, Christian Vogt, a German tech wunderkind who has departed for success in Silicon Valley. Dubois is dismissed by fellow staff and bosses when she warns of the risks posed by falling behind in the race to develop AI. They counter that the current boom is a bubble and its proponents are untrustworthy and self-interested. Ultimately, politics and populism prove insurmountable obstacles to a meaningful strategy and response.

Dubois watches with growing dismay as the future pounces. AI delivers both great productivity gains, reducing Europe to a starry-eyed presence, its economy consumed by a social safety net that it cannot afford........

© The Japan Times