David Runciman is Professor of Politics and Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. He writes regularly for the London Review of Books and has published numerous books including The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis. His interests include various aspects of contemporary political philosophy and contemporary politics and he has recently worked on the dangers of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Agents. David is interested in the difference between robots and artificial corporations and markets as well as the effects of franchising out decisions to machines on democracy.