Transformation: AI, Trust and, the New Middle Ages

Transformation: AI, Trust and, the New Middle Ages

By Tomasz Sanpruch
Michael Caine
Listen with Sir Michael Caine™ and 1,000+ voices
Length5h 31m

About this audiobook

Transformation explores a world in which artificial intelligence has moved beyond being a supportive tool and become a full executor of work, decisions, and communication. Written at the moment this shift becomes irreversible, the book examines how generative AI is reshaping labor, power, trust, and authorship faster than institutions can adapt. The book itself reflects this change. Tomasz Sańpruch presents himself not as a traditional author, but as a prompter—initiating ideas while AI interprets and structures them. Drawing on economic data and real-world examples, Transformation challenges comforting assumptions about “new jobs,” showing how productivity gains fail to translate into stable employment and why societies may be drifting toward a new “Middle Ages” defined by concentrated power and scarce trust.

Audiobook details

Rating★★★★★ 5.0 (2)
GenreBusiness and Economics
Length5 hrs 31 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateDec 20, 2025
LanguageEnglish

Table of contents

1Introduction
2Methodological Note
3Megatrend 1
41.1.2. Autonomous Decision-Making Systems
51.1.3. Scaling Compute Power and Falling Inference Costs: Economics as the “Hidden Engine” of Change
Show all chapters
61.1.4. Why Human Control Is an Illusion
71.2. The Dynamics of Automation: Pace, Forecasts, and Historical Comparisons
81.3. Why AI Creates Fewer Jobs Than Earlier Technologies
91.3.1. The Social Consequences of the “Elevator Effect”: Inequality, Education, and Generational Frustration
101.3.2. Frustration as Political Fuel: Populism, Institutional Delegitimation, and the New Power of Big Tech
111.4. Sectoral Analysis
121.4.1. Marketing and Communication: A Pilot Sector for the Automation of Cognitive Work
131.4.1.1. Replacing Creators with AI
141.4.2. Public Administration: Automating the State and the Erosion of Responsibility
151.4.3. Finance and Banking: Algorithmic Exclusion, Scoring, and Credit as an Instrument of Power
161.4.4. Healthcare: Algorithmic Triage, Access to Treatment, and the Limits of Responsibility
171.4.5. Education: Algorithmic Teaching, Talent Selection, and the Reproduction of Inequality
181.4.6. IT and Software Engineering: The End of the Competency Monopoly and the Erosion of a “Privileged” Profession
191.5. Case Study: Communication and Marketing
201.5.1. The Newsroom That Is No Longer a Newsroom
211.5.2. The Renaissance of the “Walking Reporter”
221.5.3. The Wealthy Build Their Own Media: “Informational Courts of a New Middle Ages”
231.5.4. The Daily Battle for Human Attention
241.5.5. The Paradox of the AI Age: The More Information We Have, the More We Want People
251.6. AI as a Structural Force, Not a Tool
26Megatrend 2
272.1. The Crisis of Trust in the Age of Deepfakes and Generative AIWhen evidence stops being evidence
282.1.1. Political Deepfakes: From Manipulation to the Delegitimization of Democracy
292.2. Gen Z and the Shift in Communication PreferencesData, not intuition: how a generation raised online responds to the crisis of trust
302.2.1. Deepfakes, Elections, and Geopolitics: When the Crisis of Trust Becomes an Instrument of Power
312.2.2. Geopolitics in the Age of SimulationWars Without Gunfire, Power Without Truth
322.3. The Renaissance of Face-to-Face Meetings
332.4. Authenticity as a Competitive Advantage
342.4.1. The Impact on Employer Branding
352.5.3. Anti-Deepfake PoliciesFrom Crisis Response to an Architecture of Resilience
36Megatrend 3
373.1. Polarisation of the Information Market
383.2. Trends: Trust, Newsletters, Subscriptions
393.3. Disinformation and Automated Content FactoriesWhen information overproduction becomes a political and economic risk
403.5. The Future of the Journalistic Profession
41Megatrend 4
424.1. The Concept of the “New Middle Ages”From Intellectual Metaphor to a Diagnosis of an Era (Eco, Bull, Harari, Maçães, Turchin)
434.2. Feudalization 2.0
444.3. A Plurality of Truths and Parallel Realities
454.5.1. Yuval Noah Harari: Power Over Narrative and Mind
464.5.2. Thomas Friedman: A World Too Fast for States
474.5.3. Bruno Maçães: The Fragmentation of Geopolitics into Parallel Worlds
484.5.4. Peter Turchin: Cyclical Crisis and Elite Overproduction
494.6. Implications for Firms and IndividualsReputation, the “Credibility Shield,” and Survival in a World of Fragmented Narratives
50Strategic Recommendations

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