Potions and Spells ⇥ 8ball.report

Sean Monahan:

People love to quote the third of Arthur C. Clark’s laws — “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And almost always with a positive spin. The Disneyfied language makes it sound wondrous. But let’s reconsider the quote with a different word:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from witchcraft.

This is far from the first article aligning new technologies — particularly artificial intelligence — with magical thinking. Just searching some related keywords yields at least three academic papers, plus loads of articles with similar framing. Some include this same Clarke quote for obvious reasons.

Monahan, though, ties it to a broader social condition in which magical thinking is on the rise, and there is something to think about in this. I am not necessarily in agreement — I think this is more of an interesting exercise in language than it is describing a broader trend — but I have also just finished reading “If It Sounds Like a Quack” and, so, my head might be in a funny space.