Boom vs Doom

Artificial intelligence and robotics, promise extraordinary prosperity and unprecedented disruption.

Across history, technological revolutions expanded employment and raised living standards. This time may be different. As machines increasingly replace cognitive and physical labor, economic growth is becoming decoupled from work itself.

In Boom vs Doom, David Hewett examines the central debate of the AI age: whether these technologies will produce broad-based prosperity or deepen inequality and social strain. Rather than predicting a single outcome, the book explores how what the author refers to as "AIR" - artificial intelligence and robotics - could reshape productivity, demographics, labor markets, and public policy.

The outcome, Hewett argues, is not determined by technology alone. When optimism goes largely unexamined, the risk of social and fiscal strain increases. Boom, rather than doom, requires deliberate planning: rethinking work, income, and retirement so that the gains from artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation produce shared, sustainable prosperity rather than concentrated success.