Henry Farrell

Spirals of Delusion: How AI Distorts Decision-Making and Makes Dictators More Dangerous – with Abraham Newman and Jeremy Wallace

In policy circles, discussions about artificial intelligence invariably pit China against the United States in a race for technological supremacy. If the key resource is data, then China, with its billion-plus citizens and lax protections against state surveillance, seems destined to win. Kai-Fu Lee, a famous computer scientist, has claimed that data is the new oil, and China the new OPEC. If superior technology is what provides the edge, however, then the United States, with its world class university system and talented workforce, still has a chance to come out ahead. For either country, pundits assume that superiority in AI

Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman and Jeremy Wallace, “Spirals of Delusion: How AI Distorts Decision-Making and Makes Dictators More Dangerous,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2022 (Centennial Issue).

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Other Writing:

Chapter in an Edited Volume

“Great Britain: Falling Through the Holes in the Network Concept,” in Local Production Systems in Europe: Rise or Demise? – with Colin Crouch – ed. Colin Crouch et al.

April 26, 2021 ed. Colin Crouch et al. European industrialism
British economic development has long exhibited strong regional patterns and contrasts. The UK shares with France a characteristic not possessed by Germany or Italy: the contemporary weakness of its major regional centres, so that the capital cities (London and Paris) and the regions surrounding them (the so-called Home Counties in south-east England and the Ile ...
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Essay

The Tech Intellectuals

October 1, 2013 Democracy Issue 30
A quarter of a century ago, Russell Jacoby lamented the demise of the public intellectual. The cause of death was an improvement in material conditions. Public intellectuals—Dwight Macdonald, I.F. Stone, and their like—once had little choice but to be independent. They had difficulty getting permanent well-paying jobs. However, as universities began to expand, they offered ...
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