18.28, Saturday 29 Jan 2011

In defense of machines, by George Boas: We are first told that though man invented [machines] to be his servants he has become theirs. ... This argument is a gross exaggeration. Man is no more a slave of his machines than he has ever been, or than he is to his body ...

We must each establish a system of values for ourselves or absorb that of our social group, and judge machines by it as we do everything else. There is no other way of evaluating anything.

(Found in Visions of Technology, edited by Richard Rhodes.)