Bridle sees a world full of risk and reward. Although the reward for technological innovation is typically lavish wealth, and these days, fame as well, there is still a need for consideration, patience, and thorough common sense, but when money is on the line, Bridle shows that people tend to do what is best for their bank accounts. Then, in the future, when technological advances have been allowed to escalate without true carefulness, the future could be grim.
He looks at the climate crisis as a piece of evidence for this thesis, because he feels that technological advances in the long past, coupled with a lack of foresight, might have caused the global warming crisis or accelerated it. But he doesn't just mention this for no reason. Consider how this kind of error might matter in a future with Artificial Intelligence, for instance.
When the robots are more powerful and competent than any of us (which has been happening for a long time; Bridle mentions Kasperov's loss to an IBM chess computer), Bridle feels it will be far too late to try and fix any problems, so the book finds its audience right on the precipice of an eerie, dangerous future, unless care and common sense finally matter more to innovative companies than potential profit, because as he notices, every action can have unintended consequences.
