Joyce Fegan: What if the AI revolution doesn’t solve the problems we actually have?

Joyce Fegan questions whether Silicon Valley’s AI revolution can address the messy, human problems that technology cannot simply automate away

Mark Zuckerberg's recent online essay paints a utopian picture where 'everyone will have an exceptionally capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about'. That sentence did not read 'everyone can have' or 'everyone could have access to' one of these agents. File photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In 2008, Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin was asked what her biggest challenges were. She pauses, scratches her head, and, in absolutely no rush, declares it in earnest to be "what to cook for dinner nightly, you know? Just night after night".

The resurfaced clip went viral in recent years — the mundane monotony of what it takes to live a life strongly resonating with millions of people. This intimacy with her own humanity, this rootedness in the day-to-day domesticity of most people's lives, was probably a contributory factor to her own global success.