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Wilson says cashiers–74% of whom are women–are likely to the first overtaken by the automation wave. Also likely to be affected are retail salespeople, who may not be needed as shoppers increasingly consult their phones for information about sizes, colors, and availability. “Smartphones have all kinds of information about the products you want to buy, so the need for salespeople is considerably less,” he says.For example, Bloomingdale’s has tested smart fitting rooms with wall-mounted tablets allowing customers to scan items and view other colors and sizes and receive recommendations to “complete the look.” Home Depot says four self-checkout systems occupy the space of three normal aisles and obviate the need for two human cashiers. Amazon’s Go concept stores have no cashiers at all, enabling shoppers to pay for everything through their phones.

In industry, there is blunt-force algorithmic tension – ‘Efficiency, capitalism, commerce!’ versus ‘Robots are stealing our jobs!’ But for algorithmic art, the tension is subtler. Only 4 per cent of the work done in the United States economy requires ‘creativity at a median human level’, according to the consulting firm McKinsey and Company. So for computer art – which tries explicitly to zoom into this small piece of that vocational pie – it’s a question not of efficiency or equity, but of trust. Art requires emotional and phrenic investments, with the promised return of a shared slice of the human experience. When we view computer art, the pestering, creepy worry is: who’s on the other end of the line? Is it human? We might, then, worry that it’s not art at all.

But the honest-to-God truth, at the end of all of this, is that this whole notion is in some way a put-on: a distinction without a difference. ‘Computer art’ doesn’t really exist in an any more provocative sense than ‘paint art’ or ‘piano art’ does. The algorithmic software was written by a human, after all, using theories thought up by a human, using a computer built by a human, using specs written by a human, using materials gathered by a human, at a company staffed by humans, using tools built by a human, and so on. Computer art is human art – a subset rather than a distinction. It’s safe to release the tension.

AI systems could play a part in democracy while remaining subordinate to traditional democratic processes like human deliberation and human votes. And they could be made subject to the ethics of their human masters. It should not be necessary for citizens to surrender their moral judgment if they don’t wish to.

There are nevertheless serious objections to the idea of AI Democracy. Foremost among them is the transparency objection: can we really call a system democratic if we don’t really understand the basis of the decisions made on our behalf? Although AI Democracy could make us freer or more prosperous in our day-to-day lives, it would also rather enslave us to the systems that decide on our behalf. One can see Pericles shaking his head in disgust.

In the past humans were prepared, in the right circumstances, to surrender their political affairs to powerful unseen intelligences. Before they had kings, the Hebrews of the Old Testament lived without earthly politics. They were subject only to the rule of God Himself, bound by the covenant that their forebears had sworn with Him. The ancient Greeks consulted omens and oracles. The Romans looked to the stars. These practices now seem quaint and faraway, inconsistent with what we know of rationality and the scientific method. But they prompt introspection. How far are we prepared to go–what are we prepared to sacrifice–to find a system of government that actually represents the people?