RUTH SUNDERLAND: Arts can unify us in opposition to AI

Are we on the brink of a post-literate world – one in which we read less, write less and, ultimately, think less? This is the most important question facing those of us who live in Western democratic economies.

Are we sleepwalking into a future in which our brains are less sharp and less original because we outsource our opinions to social media and AI? One in which tribalism and simplistic thinking crowd out complexity and empathy?

And if this is the direction of travel, is it already too late to reverse? The richness, in all senses, of our future depends on the answer. The question arose at a high-powered panel last week discussing the FGS Global Radar report, which surveys international business and political leaders alongside public opinion.

Its findings are bleak. Pessimism has reached crisis point. Disenchantment in the UK with the Starmer–Reeves Government is mirrored elsewhere: more than two-thirds of people in 27 countries believe life will be harder for their children and grandchildren, that their country is divided and that democracy itself is weakened. The biggest concern everywhere is the cost of living.

A higher percentage of people – 34 per cent – trust ChatGPT as a source of information than they do politicians on 22 per cent.

For business leaders, this creates a formidable new set of problems. Most obviously, a deeply negative public mood translates into hostility towards business itself.

All things to all robots: Are we sleepwalking into a future in which our brains are less sharp and less original because we outsource our opinions to social media and AI?

The attempt to win over the public through ESG – environmental, social and governance – credentials has largely run out of road and President Trump has made his distaste abundantly clear.

Yet Trump has not reverted to a conventional shareholder value model of capitalism. Instead, he has signalled that he expects business leaders to serve as instruments of his political agenda in what he defines as the US national interest, which naturally is synonymous with his own.

Companies operate in a world in which long-standing certainties are being dismantled, division is deepening and there is a growing hunger for simple answers.

In the UK, more than 40 per cent of people believe there are clear and easy solutions to our problems, if only we had better leaders. That belief will continue to propel charismatic populists. In the long run, it is likely to make matters considerably worse.

Established routes by which businesses and politicians reach the public are less clear. Mainstream media is still influential, but there are now myriad competing voices.

In response to ‘post-literacy’, bosses are urged to become ‘storytellers’ and to captivate shareholders and customers. British boardrooms are unlikely to be full of executives who naturally summon up their inner Scheherazade.

Perhaps it is naïve, but my hope is that, so long as we have literature and the creative arts – fields in which this country excels – a distorted AI-driven dystopia is not inevitable.

Books, music, paintings and films speak to our common humanity and allow us to escape the narrow confines of our own perspectives. To read a great novel is to travel across time and space and spend some time living in someone else’s mind.

So business leaders should read a really good book. Visit the theatre. Spend an hour or two in a gallery. Go to an opera or a concert. None of these things can be replaced by AI. In an age of division, fear and mistrust, the arts can still be a unifying force.