By Futurist Thomas Frey
When the Past Meets the Future Over Whiskey
I found myself in a peculiar dream last night—sitting across from Mark Twain in what appeared to be a riverboat saloon, though the Mississippi outside the windows looked suspiciously like data streams. He was smoking a cigar, naturally, and eyeing me with that mixture of amusement and skepticism he reserved for people trying to sell him something.
“So, Mr. Frey,” he began, “you’re here to tell me about the wonders of your automated age. Driverless carriages, flying machines that deliver packages, and thinking engines that’ll make human brains obsolete. Am I getting the gist of your pitch?”
“It’s more nuanced than that,” I said. “We’re building AI systems that can—”
“Let me stop you right there.” He took a long draw from his cigar. “Every age thinks it’s inventing something new. In my time, they said the steamboat would transform civilization. And it did—transformed it into a system where a few men owned the boats and everyone else worked for them. Tell me how your robots are different.”
Continue reading… “A Conversation with Mark Twain About Our Robotic Future”