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Should We Look on New Technologies with Awe and Dread?

🌀 DTech 🟤 PP

If you’ve encountered any science fiction, you’ve experienced the technological sublime—the feeling of awe, braided with dread, that can emerge in response to the engulfing possibilities of technology’s progress. Maybe you’ve gaped at the sprawling cyber-cityscapes of “Blade Runner,” or at the impossibly tall, leaflike alien ships in “Arrival.” In the cascading green code of “The Matrix,” you might have sensed a promise of revelation—or perhaps Ava, the uncannily beautiful android played by Alicia Vikander in “Ex Machina,” has induced some idea of what it might mean to be more than human. In all of these cases, technology feels big, strange, relentless, but also mind-expanding and appealing—a bracing wave that will sweep you up.

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