AI人工智慧將如何顛覆我們的世界，革新人類的工作模式，衝擊整個社會？然而根據劍橋大學政治學教授大衛．朗西曼（David Runciman）綜觀歷史所提出的觀點，人類實際上早已與人工智慧共處了300年！因為「國家」和「企業」，也是被人類賦予巨大權力的機器，是不具情感的「人造代理人」。
 
　　本書詳細闡述企業、國家這些「人造代理人」的歷史，分析人類社會如何和這些巨型機器共處，以解釋我們目前的處境。作者從美國、英國到東印度公司、標準石油、臉書和阿里巴巴的崛起，談國家和企業如何迅速地接管了我們的世界。國家和企業一方面協助人類擺脫貧窮、抑制疾病，另一方面卻也引發了大規模戰爭、環境惡化……等問題。國家和企業這些人造代理人「應該為人類工作，卻成為最終的決策機器」。
 
　　下個階段，國家和企業將為了爭奪人工智慧的利益，引發越演越烈的鬥爭。大衛．朗西曼提出獨到的見解——決定人類未來命運的，不僅僅是人類和AI如何共處，而是「國家」、「企業」和「人工智慧機器」彼此互動的結果，這才是我們真正需要面對的挑戰。(文/博客來編譯)

Countless books, news reports, and opinion pieces have announced the impending arrival of artificial intelligence, with most claiming that it will upend our world, revolutionizing not just work but society overall. Yet according to political philosopher and historian David Runciman, we’ve actually been living with a version of AI for 300 years?because states and corporations are robots, too. In The Handover, Runciman explains our current situation through the history of these ＂artificial agents＂ we created to rescue us from our all-too-human limitations--and demonstrates what this radical new view of our recent past means for our collective future.

From the United States and the United Kingdom to the East India Company, Standard Oil, Facebook, and Alibaba, states and corporations have gradually, and then much more rapidly, taken over the planet. They have helped to conquer poverty and eliminate disease, but also unleashed global wars and environmental degradation. As Runciman demonstrates, states and corporations are the ultimate decision-making machines, defined by their ability to make their own choices and, crucially, to sustain the consequences of what has been chosen. And if the rapid spread of the modern state and corporation has already transformed the conditions of human existence, new AI technology promises the same.

But what happens when AI interacts with other kinds of artificial agents, the inhuman kind represented by states and corporations? Runciman argues that the twenty-first century will be defined by increasingly intense battles between state and corporate power for the fruits of the AI revolution. In the end, it is not our own, human relationship with AI that will determine our future. Rather, humanity’s fate will be shaped by the interactions among states, corporations, and thinking machines.

With clarity and verve, The Handover presents a brilliantly original history of the last three centuries and a new understanding of the immense challenges we now face.