released 2/6/2026

How are we to think well about automation? As software technologies grow more ubiquitous and more sophisticated, how often do we imagine ourselves in the image of our devices rather than vice versa? Do we assume that our brains work computationally and that, given the right equations, we can transfer our thought-processes and our skills to machines without suffering any losses? Profit-making companies have long preferred machines to humans, replacing skilled laborers with machine operators and, more recently, computer operators, but to what extent do we now individually forgo our own human skills and capacities in favor of an easy, “frictionless” experience? Technology critic Nicholas Carr encourages us to consider how automation technologies impact our ability to engage with the world and whether — like a good tool — they present a more inviting world or close us off from that world. Carr is the author of The Glass Cage: Automation and Us (W. W. Norton & Co, 2014). This interview was originally published on Volume 129 of the Journal.

Ken Myers mentions in his introduction to this Feature two documents from the Vatican. Click here to read Antiqua Et Nova: Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence, and click here to read the January 24, 2026 text from Pope Leo on “Preserving Human Voices and Faces.”

30 minutes

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