The Age of Intelligence: How AI Will Transform Life in the Coming Decade (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781919524511)

Who will own the infrastructure that runs the world?

Artificial intelligence is no longer just a technology story.
It is becoming the infrastructure of modern life.

AI already recommends, ranks, approves, denies, predicts, and optimises. It shapes what we see, what we are offered, what we are charged - and increasingly what we are allowed to do next.

But if artificial intelligence becomes essential infrastructure: who gets to own it?

Gerard McNamara argues that AI is following the same pattern as every transformative infrastructure before it - railways, electricity, telecommunications, digital platforms.

A technology emerges. Society becomes dependent. Ownership concentrates. Regulation arrives too late.

The result is not simply a new generation of tools. It is a shift in power. Decisions once made by people are increasingly shaped by systems most citizens cannot see, understand, or challenge.

• Will automation create prosperity - or leave millions with less income, security, and purpose?
• Who controls the intelligent systems that shape hiring, lending, diagnosis, surveillance, and care?
• What happens when public services, businesses, and governments rely on algorithms most people cannot see or challenge?
• Will AI make healthcare, education, transport, and finance fairer - or deepen existing inequalities?
• Can democratic societies govern AI in the public interest before private control becomes locked in?

Across work, healthcare, education, transport, finance, smart cities, public services, privacy, democracy, security, creativity, ageing, and the global economy - this book shows how separate changes are becoming part of one larger shift.

The rise of intelligence as infrastructure.

The central question is not only what AI can do. The deeper question is who controls it.

This is not a dystopian warning. It is not a technology celebration.
It is a measured, well-researched account of the transformation already underway - and a case that the decisions made in this decade will determine whether AI serves broad public interests or concentrates power in ways that are extraordinarily difficult to reverse.