The New Religions Obsessed with A.I.

What has improved American lives most in the last 50 years? According to a Pew Research study reported this month, it's not civil rights (10 percent) or politics (2 percent): it's technology (42 percent). And yet, according to other studies, most Americans are wary of technology, especially in areas of automation (72 percent), or robotic caregivers (59 percent), or riding in driverless vehicles (56 percent), and even in using brain chip implants to augment the capabilities of healthy people (69 percent). Science fiction, however, is quickly becoming science fact--the future is the machine. This is leading many to argue that we need to anticipate the ethical questions now, rather than when it is too late.