Artificial intelligence will change our world more profoundly than fire

I don't suppose you're the kind of person who, amid a pandemic and the Euros, generally spends Monday morning wondering about the latest ruminations of Judge James Boasberg of Washington, DC. I'm paid to know about these things, and I'd never heard of him. Until, that is, a fortnight ago, when he issued a legal opinion with such potentially profound implications for you, me, and the epoch into which we have stumbled that suddenly I took a rather close interest in this estimable man of law. The learned judge dismissed two anti-trust cases against Facebook, one from the Federal Trade Commission and another from an alliance of US states. They had argued that the social media giant is in effect a monopoly.