John Stossel Welcomes Our Robot Overlords

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Ray Kurzweil—inventor of things like machines that turn text into speech—has popularized the idea that we are rapidly approaching "the singularity," the point at which machines not only think for themselves but develop intellectually faster than humans. Scientists say that soon machines will be too smart and self-motivated for us to predict.

This future sounds unsettling, but it's not much use just hoping machines stay dumber than we, argues John Stossel. As with so many innovations in the past, handing off tasks to machines may make our lives better by freeing us up to focus on activities that we enjoy more.