When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio.

My own suspicion is that a stand-alone artificial mind will be more a tool of narrow utility than something especially apocalyptic.

In a Photoshopped world, only the skeptical eye prevails.

As our various electronic devices gain more and more sensory awareness, we open up the potential for entirely new forms of interaction. Not just new interfaces - tapping and shaking and whatnot - but a shift in presence.

Human civilization has been changing the Earths environment for millennia, often to our detriment. Dams, deforestation and urbanization can alter water cycles and wind patterns, occasionally triggering droughts or even creating deserts.

When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio.

It's remarkably easy to dig up enormous amounts of information about individuals, without their consent.