The Covid-19 pandemic may have killed 2.7m people and resulted in the worst economic contraction in a generation. But the optimism of the West Coast tech elite remains undimmed. “The future can be almost unimaginably great,” as Sam Altman, who heads an artificial intelligence research company, wrote in a recent essay, Moore’s Law for Everything.

Like many tech evangelists, Altman argues that we are on the brink of an AI-induced productivity explosion that will shower abundance on all. The entry of millions of Chinese workers into the global labour force over the past three decades will be seen as nothing compared with the arrival of tireless AI “workers” that will radically cut the cost of all tradable goods. When robots start inventing better robots, we will achieve “Moore’s Law for everything”, not just computing power.

“Imagine a world where, for decades, everything — housing, education, food, clothing, etc — became half as expensive every two years,” he enthused.