Should We Look on New Technologies with Awe and Dread?

"First, we see an angry ape bludgeoning one of his fellows to death with a scavenged bone; he's only just discovered that bones can be used this way, and he hurls his weapon into the air in celebration. We follow the bone upward as it tumbles against the unpolluted blue sky. Then, suddenly, we cut to outer space, millions of years in the ape's future. The bone has been replaced by an elegant satellite, floating past the curve of the Earth."

"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."

Technological sublime evokes awe braided with dread in response to technology's progress, producing sensations of wonder and foreboding. Science-fiction imagery—bones-to-satellites, cyberpunk cityscapes, uncanny androids—illustrates technology's capacity to feel vast, strange, and mind-expanding. Spectacles of real-world engineering, such as space-shuttle launches and SpaceX booster landings, generate communal fascination with technological power. The sublime both helps people grasp the scale and potential of creations and seduces them with grandeur. That seductive awe can mask risks, ethical dilemmas, and consequences that accompany large-scale technological advancement.

Read at The New Yorker