“Even the way we envision the technological singularity is not exactly new, predating even the technology that would make it seem possible. In an 1863 article, “Darwin among the Machines,” Samuel Butler wrote (in language that Seth Shostak may have echoed to me), “Who will be man’s successor? To which the answer is: We are ourselves creating our own successors. Man will become to the machine what the horse and the dog are to man; the conclusion being that machines are, or are becoming, animate.” Just as we panic about kids these days texting too much, so too did the ancient Greeks panic about kids those days reading the written word instead of memorizing. The fear of technology is nothing new.”