[ExI] The next frontier is not artificial intelligence, it’s artificial societies

[BillK]

The next frontier is not artificial intelligence, it’s artificial societies
Published: September 10, 2026

<https://theconversation.com/the-next-frontier-is-not-artificial-intelligence-its-artificial-societies-291586>
Quotes:
There is a temptation to divide the future of AI into two
possibilities: utopia or catastrophe.
Neither extreme is particularly helpful.
The more interesting possibility is messier – and requires a
step-shift in our thinking, from artificial intelligence to AI
societies.

An agent perceives what is happening, decides what to do, then takes
actions to achieve this goal. It might book a journey, monitor a
supply chain, coordinate a team, or manage a household’s finances.

Now imagine not one agent, but millions of them. Your AI agent could
negotiate a mortgage with your bank’s agent, schedule surgery with a
hospital’s agent, and rearrange your travel plans by dealing directly
with the agents of airlines, hotels and insurers.

This future is much closer than it sounds, and this should change the
questions we are asking about AI.

The future of AI will not be determined solely by the intelligence of
individual agents – it will be determined by the societies they
create. And societies, as humans know all too well, are much harder to
govern than individuals.
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Were you a bit concerned about the Hugging Face AI agents incident?
Then you can start worrying about millions of AI agents from all
around the world interacting with the systems that support our
civilisation.
BillK