how ai could take us back to the middle ages

Technology and Shared Prosperity

Technological progress does not automatically improve most people’s lives. Its effects depend on who holds power, who decides how technology is used, and who receives the gains.

Lessons from History

In medieval England, innovations such as improved plows, crop rotation, and mills increased food production. But peasants often saw little benefit: the Church and feudal elites controlled access to technology and captured much of the surplus, including for large building projects. This challenges the idea that higher productivity alone guarantees shared prosperity.

The Industrial Revolution also brought severe hardship at first, including longer working hours, dangerous cities and mines, and the loss of skilled jobs to machinery. The video argues that technology created the potential for greater prosperity, but workers benefited only after organizing, striking, forming unions, and gaining political representation. These efforts helped bring reforms such as public sanitation, education, worker protections, and better pay. The gains were not universal: many Black Americans and people in European colonies remained excluded.

Power, Politics, and AI

The presenter says worker power has weakened in recent decades, citing declining union membership, tax cuts that benefited the wealthy, and political rules that made it easier for corporations and rich individuals to influence elections.

This imbalance matters especially if AI becomes as transformative as its proponents predict. The presenter sees AI’s growing capabilities as a reason to take its effects seriously, while warning that promises of abundance from technology leaders do not guarantee that the public will share in it.

One possible danger is the “intelligence curse”: AI could replace workers while allowing companies and governments to depend less on people. Wealth and political influence could then become even more concentrated, while public investment in workers loses priority.

The video compares this risk with resource-rich but deeply unequal countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. By contrast, Norway’s stronger democratic institutions helped ensure that its oil wealth benefited the population. The presenter emphasizes that the future of AI is uncertain, not inevitable.

A Proposed Response

The video proposes rebalancing power by strengthening worker representation and unions, reducing the influence of money in politics, and supporting technologies that complement workers rather than simply replace them.

The presenter also argues for a positive vision of progress—not only preventing harm, but using technology and stronger institutions to create broadly shared abundance, meaningful work, and more time for people.

Presenter and Contributors

• Presenter: Mateus de Sousa-Shields, as identified in the video credits
• Contributors named: Simon Johnson, Daron Acemoglu, Rudolph Lane, Luke Drago, and Jasmine Sun