July 19, 2024

This essay falls into three parts. First, I  discuss the question of what it is which makes  humans unique — that is, irreplaceable.  Second, I consider whether  machines  on balance  enhance or diminish humanness.   This has become an issue of the moment  with the growth of machine intelligence. Finally, I try to answer two questions: how can we secure our survival as  human beings? Is it worth trying to do so?

A quick preview of  my answer to the first question. Some bits of humans are  clearly replaceable. They fall into the category of  spare parts. The bits which aren’t are what used to be called soul and which we now call mind: in religious language,  the bits which link  us to the Divine. We urgently need to decide  which bits should and should not be

17th of October, 2024

Over the years, “Fortress Europe” has relied on a mix of bribery and force to keep out undocumented migrants fleeing wars, famine, and conditions of extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. But such measures are no solution to a problem that ultimately stems from much larger global and historical forces.

LONDON – In 2023, 150,000 migrants crossed the Central Mediterranean in small boats from North Africa, fleeing war, pestilence, and starvation in their own countries. Over the years, thousands have died making this journey, because their boats have capsized or caught fire. Yet while these tragedies regularly evoke humanitarian concerns, the steady flow of migrants has also fuelled right-wing nativist parties across the democratic world.

A prescient, but now

“My Lords, in taking part in this debate, I must declare an interest: recently, I was a victim of the committee chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller. Although this is not the kind of interest a Member is normally obliged to declare, I believe that my personal experience has given me a certain insight into the way the system works, which may be of public interest.

I welcome the committee’s aim to shorten and clarify the code and guide wherever possible—they require drastic pruning—but, because their expansion is part of a more general demand for increased transparency in public life, it is very hard to know how and where to stand out against the tide; one then sort of looks rather like King Canute. That is a problem the committee must face.

When I was made a Peer

“”My Lords, I was not on the committee and therefore would like to allow myself a few mild criticisms of a very thought-provoking report. I will touch on three aspects of its central problem: “Who watches the watchdogs?”

First, a bit of history might be helpful. In its present form, this challenge was created by the Thatcher reforms of the 1980s, which produced a new dividing line between the state and the private sector. Previously, 

the Government owned the public utilities and were accountable to Parliament, while the private sector was in the hands of private companies that were in theory accountable to the market. That was the model, anyway, but it was swept away by the reforms of the 1980s. Injected into the private sector by Margaret Thatcher and her successors were some

“Skidelsky, a British economist, draws on literature, political philosophy, history, and cultural developments in this brooding meditation on the rise of artificial intelligence. The promise of a better world, he warns, “is open only to a tiny minority”.” –THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

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Letter: The New Statesman, 6th of September 2024

It is to the great credit of the New Statesman that it allowed two such opposing views on Ukraine to be published in its issue of 23 August. Brendan Simms says that Britain must do everything it can to “empower” Ukraine to restore its 1991 frontiers; Wolfgang Münchau writes that waning German and US support for “doing whatever it takes” to expel Russia from Ukraine will force a negotiated peace.

Simms and those like him who advocate an extension of the war into Russian territory entirely ignores the possibility that, in response, the Russians will deploy more dangerous weapons of their own, in an escalation to the nuclear level. Why is a professor of international relations at Cambridge encouraging Ukraine to strike cruise missiles

The Spectator, 13 January 2024

Monetarism, with which his name is associated, has long defined economic policy. But what would Friedman have made of the banking collapse, so soon after his death in 2006?

The Keynesian economist Nicholas Kaldor called Milton Friedman one of the two most evil men of the 20th century. (Friedman was in distinguished company.) The ‘scourge’ he inflicted on the world was monetarism, a product of what Kaldor called Friedman’s Big Lie – of which more later. Moral judgments aside, how does Friedman rank in the world of 20th-century economists? By common consent, he stands with Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes at the apex of his profession. All wrestled with the defining problem of their age: the radical economic and political instability of the

My latest book has so far have been published in three different places under three different titles. In the UK (hardback November 2023, paperback November 2024). It was entitled “The Machine Age” An Idea, A History,. A Warning. In Germany it was published in April 2024 under the title: Werden Wir Ersetzt: Vom Fortschrittswahn zu einer Ökonomie des gerechten Lebens. In America it was published in October 2024, under the title of: Mindless: The Human Condition in the Machine Age.

I was interviewd about the german edition by Martin Burckhardt and Hopkins Stanley. Pleas find the video here: https://martinburckhardt.substack.com/p/talking-to-robert-skidelsky

The American edittion has so far been reviewd by John Berthelsen in the Asian Sentinel on the 21st of September 2024.

Project Syndicate 18th of September, 2024

“Shortly after taking office, the United Kingdom’s new Labour government announced the discovery of a massive shortfall in public finances. While much of the political debate has centered on the size of this fiscal hole, the real culprit is the set of arbitrary rules that British governments have imposed on themselves since 1997.“

LONDON – Shortly after taking office, the United Kingdom’s new Labour government announced the discovery of a £22 billion ($29 billion) “black hole” in public finances, allegedly left by its Conservative predecessors. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had pledged to revive growth after years of economic stagnation, rising public debt, and a record-high tax burden, said he had “no choice” but to implement

Project Syndicate 21st of August, 2024

“Even though recorded performances provide some valuable benefits, most people prefer live events. That is because the audience is part of the production, and the two sides exchange energy and the gamut of human emotions in a way that would be impossible in any other setting.“

SALZBURG – While taking in the immensity of Anton Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony at this year’s Salzburg Festival, one of classical music’s most celebrated events, I kept returning to one question: Why do most people prefer live music to a recording?

Seated in the front row of a box directly opposite the orchestra, I had a full view of the stage. But what value did I derive from being there, as opposed to watching an expertly recorded performance? To be sure, a recorded

There is only one acceptable end to the war in Ukraine. And it doesn’t involve giving Kyiv the weapons it would need to entirely drive Russia out

Aug 14, 2024

“The nation must clearly speak with one voice,” declared Baroness Neville-Rolfe, then Conservative minister of state at the cabinet office, on 20th February 2024. No remark so neatly captures the mindset of Britain’s foreign policy and defence establishment on Ukraine. 

The official view, from which Labour has never dissented, is that Britain must give Ukraine “all that it takes” to drive the Russian invader from its soil. “We need consistently and reliably to do whatever Ukraine needs to win this war,” said Grant Shapps as Tory defence minister, in May. “The British government must leave the Kremlin in no doubt that it

Last Friday’s news was dominated by the ‘biggest IT outage in history’, as   a bug in a routine software update cascaded into a global crisis.  Millions of computers were knocked out, thousands of flights  cancelled,  hospital operations  postponed,  television channels went off the air, payments systems  crashed,  supply chains  froze. In  short the digital foundations of our civilisation were  shaken  for hours and in some cases days.

There was no mention that I could see  of  E.M.Forster’s  extraordinarily prescient  novella The Machine Stops. Written in 1906,  it  depicts a humanity wholly dependent on machine-provided services. Then the Machine stops working, little by little at first, then completely. Civilisation comes  to an end,  ‘strangled in the garments [it] has woven’.

In his interesting opinion article (Robots sacked, screenings shut down: a new movement of luddites is rising up against AI, 27 July), Ed Newton-Rex misses one of the most serious concerns about artificial intelligence: its surveillance potential. Governments have always spied on their subjects/citizens: technology multiplies their powers of spying.

In his novel 1984, George Orwell had the authorities install a two-way telescreen system in every party member’s home, and in all workplaces and public spaces. This allowed Big Brother to monitor individuals’ actions and conversations, while he himself remained invisible.

Today’s digital control systems operating through electronic tracking devices and voice and facial recognition systems are simply Big Brother’s control devices

Sir, William Hague poses a false alternative: letting Russia win or allowing Ukraine to fire western-supplied missiles deep in Russian territory. There is better way: a negotiated peace, involving neither a Ukrainian defeat nor military escalation. This requires a recognition that Ukraine has already won its most important victory. Putin expected to be in Kyiv within a week: Ukraine, with our help, has made sure he will never get there. Some sacrifice of territory in return for real, not nominal, independence, would still leave the balance of a compromise peace enormously in Ukraine’s favour.

Readiness for compromise also requires shedding the dangerous delusion that a postponement of negotiations will improve Ukraine’s military position. Ukraine may well be supplied with more and

Russia’s latest military gains in the Donetsk region (Report, July 5) reinforce the case for a negotiated settlement of the war in Ukraine. The US and its allies support Ukraine’s key war aim, which is a return to the 2014 frontiers, ie, Russia’s expulsion from Crimea and Donbas. But all informed analysts agree that short of a serious escalation of war, the likeliest outcome will be continued stalemate on the ground, with a not insignificant chance of a Russian victory.

This conclusion points to the desirability, even urgency, of a negotiated peace, not least for the sake of Ukraine itself. Reluctance by the official west to accept a negotiated peace rests on the belief that anything short of a complete Ukrainian victory would allow Putin to “get away with it”.

But this ignores

Labour’s Economic Plan Lacks Keynesian Ambition

Jul 24, 2024 Robert Skidelsky

Today’s risk-averse economic climate calls for increased public investment to attract reluctant private capital. But British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s insistence on adhering to strict fiscal rules casts doubt on his ability to pull the United Kingdom out of its economic malaise.

LONDON – In a recent speech, the United Kingdom’s new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, reiterated her commitment to “fiscal rules.” These rules require that “the current budget must move into balance” and that “the [national] debt must be falling as a share of the economy by [the Labour government’s] fifth year.” This involves reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio from its current level of 100% within five years and

My Lords, I welcome the new Front Bench. I know the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, as an eloquent speaker and a doughty defender of the good fight—if he is allowed to.

I believe the Starmer era will be defined by its handling of foreign affairs. As many noble Lords have pointed out, the world is very dangerous place. There are three powder kegs: in the Far East, in the Middle East and in Ukraine. Each is capable of igniting a world war. I concentrate on Ukraine because it is on the outcome of this conflict that our Government can hope to have their biggest influence.

The gracious Speech says—the noble Lord, Lord Moore, also quoted this—that:

“My Government will continue to give its full support to Ukraine and its people and it will endeavour to play a leading role in providing

23rd July 2021 (Published online)

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May 1 2024 William White is right (Letters, April 29) to say that John Maynard Keynes regarded the rate of interest as “highly conventional”, but he should have quoted the whole sentence from chapter 15 of The General Theory: “The difficulties in the way of [full employment] ensue from the association of a conventional and highly stable rate of interest with a fickle and highly unstable marginal efficiency of capital.” It was for this reason that Keynes advocated an active role for fiscal policy. For as he put it in 1932: “The lender, with his confidence shattered by his experiences, will continue to ask for new enterprise rates of interest which the borrower cannot expect to earn.” The current disabling of fiscal policy has thrown the whole onus of demand management on monetary

Robert was recently interviewed by Martin Burckhardt, the German cultural philosopher, about his new book The Machine Age in Germany. Below is a link to a video of the interview:

Link: https://martinburckhardt.substack.com/p/talking-to-robert-skidelsky

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April 19, 2024 ROBERT SKIDELSKY

George Orwell’s great contribution to dystopian literature was not his depiction of the modern surveillance state, but rather his insight that if everyone used only state-approved language, surveillance would become redundant. The difference today is that Newspeak has emerged from the mechanisms of liberal democracy itself.

LONDON – Language shapes our thinking and perception of the world and, consequently, what happens in it. That is why I worry less about the troubling state of the world nowadays than about the words we use to describe it.

For example, we use the word “war” to describe a phenomenon that exists independently of our term for it. But if we consistently describe and perceive the world as hostile, it tends to become so. By the same

March 21, 2024 ROBERT SKIDELSKY

Faced with a choice between parasitic capitalism and emerging neo-fascism, it is no wonder that Western societies are increasingly pessimistic. While pessimism has pervaded previous eras, today’s mood is sustained, and partly defined, by the absence of a redemptive vision.

LONDON – In 2003, the literary critic Fredric Jameson famously observed that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” For the first time in two centuries, he noted, capitalism was viewed as both destructive and irreversible. Waning faith in the possibility of a post-capitalist future has nurtured deep pessimism.

This prevailing despair evokes John Maynard Keynes’s 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” in which he warned

The Lost Peace by Robert Skidelsky February 2024As the Ukrainian war enters its third year, there has been renewed, if rather limp, talk of a ceasefire followed by negotiations. The premise is that since neither side can ‘win’, it makes sense to start making peace. Few now remember that the war almost ended before it got going. On 24 February 2022, Russia launched ground and air attacks on Ukraine on four fronts. On 28th February 2022, Russian and Ukrainian officials came together to start to negotiate peace. There were seven rounds of talks over the next month before they were called off.The first three rounds took place in Belarus. By 7 March, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Russia would stop its operations ‘in a moment’ if Ukraine enshrined neutrality in its constitution, and

My Lords, it is a rare privilege for us to have the Foreign Secretary wind up a debate on foreign policy in this House. Such are the quirks of politics, I suppose.

I shall concentrate on one topic, and that is economic sanctions. The sanctions regime has emerged as one of the most important tools of British foreign policy. Despite, or perhaps because of their long and tangled history, their rationale remains deeply mysterious. Are they tools of war avoidance or an extension of war by other means? It is a hybrid tool, at best. This ambiguity is fatal to any peacekeeping or peacemaking purposes they may have, because they insert a warlike mentality into what should be efforts at peace—hence the utmost clarity is needed in defining their purpose and assessing their results.

Since

Labour leaders’ decision to abandon their highly publicized Green Prosperity Plan underscores the party’s ongoing failure to articulate a coherent response to Conservative criticism. Instead of focusing on bolstering their fiscal credentials, Labour leaders should reconnect with the party’s Keynesian roots.

LONDON – Following months of speculation and infighting, the United Kingdom’s Labour Party has officially abandoned its pledge to borrow £28 billion ($35 billion) annually to invest in green-energy initiatives if it wins the next general election.

Although the British media quickly dubbed it the “mother of all U-turns,” Labour’s announcement was hardly surprising. The party has been gradually scaling back its Green Prosperity Plan, first unveiled by Shadow Chancellor Rachel

Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, February–March 2022

20th February 2024

As the Ukrainian war approaches its second anniversary, there has been renewed, if rather limp, talk of a cease-fire followed by negotiations. The premise is that since neither side can “win,” it makes sense to start making peace. Few now remember that the war almost ended before it got going. On February 24, 2022, Russia launched ground and air attacks on Ukraine on four fronts. On February 28, 2022, Russian and Ukrainian officials came together in Gomel, Belarus, to start to negotiate peace. Peace talks continued intermittently for a month before being called off.

Knowledge of these talks has been steadily leaking ever since President Putin waved a “peace agreement” before Russian TV cameras on June 17,

My new book, The Machine Age, was published by Allen Lane on the 2nd November 2023. It’s available to buy on Amazon. Launch events were held at the Royal Society of Arts on the 6th November 2023 and UnHerd Club on the 28th November 2023. Links to the videos of each launch event are below:

Royal Society of Arts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX1m1RNmjd8

UnHerd Club: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3XM1WB88Ls

The following is a 23 page summary of the book:

Preface

This book tells three stories about the impact of machines on the human condition: on the way we work, on the way we live and on our possible future. The stories follow in order, since they relate the growing intrusion of machines into our lives over time; but they are linked together by both history and

My new book, The Machine Age, was published by Allen Lane on the 2nd November 2023. It’s available to buy on Amazon. Launch events were held at the Royal Society of Arts on the 6th November 2023 and UnHerd Club on the 28th November 2023. Links to the videos of each launch event are below:

Royal Society of Arts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX1m1RNmjd8

UnHerd Club: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3XM1WB88Ls

The following is a 23 page summary of the book:

Preface

This book tells three stories about the impact of machines on the human condition: on the way we work, on the way we live and on our possible future. The stories follow in order, since they relate the growing intrusion of machines into our lives over time; but they are linked together by both history and

They will see the promise—it is incumbent on us to alert them to the threat, or humanity will perish

14th November 2023

My new book, The Machine Age, is an ambitious—possibly overambitious—attempt to understand the human condition at this moment in time, through the prism of our relationship with machinery. 

The book is structured around three stories: the relationship of machines to jobs, to freedom and to survival. Of course, when I talk about the relationship between humans and machines I am using a figure of speech. It’s not the machines which promise heaven or threaten hell. It’s those who turn on the switches. The danger is that sooner rather than later they will lose control of what they have created, like Frankenstein and his Monster. 

The job displacement story is

Rachel Reeves needs a new economic narrative to break the fear of deficits and debt

24th November 2023

To observe the basic thinking behind Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement on 22 November, and how Rachel Reeves will respond, is to find that the Chancellor and his shadow inhabit the same mental universe. They both aim to lift the British economy out of the doldrums, and they agree that doing so depends on improving the efficiency of the supply side of the economy – the way capital and labour are used. But they disagree about how this can be done: there is a Conservative supply-side story and a Labour supply-side story. The political challenge facing both politicians is to persuade voters – and the markets – that their version offers the best hope for Britain’s future.

The