Mind Versus Machine: Human Insight in the Age of Automation

The future is dystopian: a world in which we humble humans will be replaced by fleets of slick automatons – mechanical menials destined to not only solder, weld and glue us out of jobs, but account, diagnose, and translate us out, too. Or, so goes a certain line of argument. Certainly, there have been some heavyweight concerns voiced about the rise of artificial intelligence. Of course, there are counterarguments too. Just as the Industrial Revolution sparked fears around the supplanting of man by machine (fears which lead some as far as destroying the new mechanical marvels: hence today's use of the word'Luddite' to denote those opposed to technological progress), all new vistas are likely to provoke both optimism and hesitance.