Apparently, 66% of us are worried about the rise of AI. The environmental implications of powering vast server farms feed into this unease, while decades of science fiction cinema have helped shape our collective imagination of looming threats. Yet much of today’s anxiety centres on the workplace. Jobs once thought immune to automation – from truck drivers to artists – now appear vulnerable to technological replacement, in ways that feel both unpredictable and unsettling. Or are they really so impossible to anticipate?
AI is only the latest in a long line of what economists call General Purpose Technologies (or GPTs – not to be confused with the Generative Pre-trained Transformer that powers ChatGPT). These are inventions that do not merely affect a single industry but reshape entire economies. Their applications often extend far beyond what their inventors envisaged, spreading rapidly across society and embedding themselves in everyday life.
Consider steam power. Originally designed to drive machines, its effects were transformative. Factories no longer needed to be tethered to rivers for water power; they could be built anywhere a steam engine could be installed. And what began as a tool for manufacturing efficiency ended up fuelling the Industrial Revolution and remaking travel by rail and sea within a few short decades.
A more recent example is the Internet. First developed for defence and academic purposes, its commercialisation in the 1990s transformed modern life. Markets, advertising, communication – all were revolutionised within a generation. For those born into the digital age, it is almost impossible to imagine life without it.
This is where the historian’s toolkit, and especially the economic historian’s, proves invaluable. Economic historians apply the methods of economics to the past, tracing how GPTs reverberate across society. They examine not just how technologies boosted factory output or productivity, but also their wider effects: the creation of new industries, the reshaping of labour markets, the redirection of trade, the transformation of towns and cities. By analysing data on wages, migration, and demographics, they reveal how a breakthrough invention rippled outward for decades. The Industrial Revolution offers both a model and a warning: while transformative technologies generate immense growth, they also bring dislocation and uncertainty for the workers living through them.
So, does AI have the same potential? That is the central question at our forthcoming event at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast. A panel of economic historians will examine the transformative technologies of the past and consider what parallels they offer for AI today. From the steam engine to the Internet, history demonstrates that innovations can generate profound opportunities while simultaneously disrupting established patterns of work and life.
For those seeking a perspective beyond speculation and science fiction, this event provides an empirically grounded discussion of how societies have previously absorbed such disruptive forces. It will offer historical case studies, informed analysis, and the opportunity to engage directly with experts on the implications of AI for our future.
The event is free and you can register here…
QPol is the ‘front door’ for public policy engagement at Queen’s University Belfast, supporting academics and policymakers in sharing evidence-based research and ideas on the major social, cultural and economic challenges facing society regionally, nationally and beyond. Website: qpol.qub.ac.uk Email: [email protected]
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