RISE OF THE MACHINES
Technology has been a part of our lives, and a major part at that, for a long time. It’s integrated itself into every minute of our every day with ease and, for the most part, we barely notice it anymore.
In the early years of the technological revolution, people thought the same way about moving pictures as many of us feel today about robots and the automation revolution. That is to say, when they witnessed the very first recorded footage of a train steaming towards the camera, they panicked and fled, believing a real train was barrelling towards them. This footage, shot by the Lumière Brothers in 1896 and entitled Arrival of a Train, is one of the most enduring recollections from the earliest years of cinema, and it took some time for people to get used to the idea that film is a captured image of a real scene, a representation rather than reality.
The same can be said for the technology-centred dilemma in which we find ourselves today. Of course, it’s not movies that we have to learn to become accustomed to, but rather something a little more in the style of Skynet from the Terminator movie franchise.
While technology always has been part of our lives, it seems to be progressing at an ever-increasing rate; indeed one could say that it’s barrelling ahead with the speed of a train. Every time we blink, a new technology or innovation has been released, and just as
