A recent study found that the average American is more afraid of robots than death. And it’s not hard to see why — did you see that those Boston Dynamics humanoids are doing parkour now?

Mind control, designer babies, and covert listening devices are no longer things of science fiction. They are integrating ever-deeper into our lives as the years pass, and the pace of change is accelerating. It’s enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most tech-savvy among us — perhaps especially the tech-savvy among us.

Take OpenAI: founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman in 2015, the company’s stated goal is to “ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)… benefits all of humanity.” A noble, comforting mission, but one that conveniently glosses over the abject horror that their founders feel towards the very technology they’re developing.

The fear, of course, is that a sufficiently smart computer could decide to wipe humans off the map just as humans casually exterminate household pests — Musk called the development of advanced AI “summoning the demon,” and said that AGI represents a “fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”

And so, while we laugh at OpenAI’s whimsical AI demonstrations…

…the company internally believes that they, the good guys, have to build AGI before the bad guys do, or else the world might literally end.

In a world with too-intelligent AI, killer robots, brain-to-computer interfaces, and gene editing, you can be forgiven for being a little bit afraid of modern technology.

It certainly feels like we’re standing at the knee of the exponential curve: the road behind us flat, the road before us vertical.

But we shouldn’t forget a truism of exponential growth: it always looks the same, relatively. A doubling from 0.5 to 1.0 is the exact same shape as a doubling from 5,000 to 10,000.

New technology has always been scary, and humanity has always been a little bit alarmist.

People worried that subways violated the will of God by getting people closer to hell, and that telephones would let people communicate with the dead. Early elevators were plagued by consumers who felt “elevator sickness” after their rides. And with the advent of the passenger train, people worried that “the unprecedented speeds of railroad travel could send women’s uteruses hurling from their bodies.” 

Technology changes, but people stay the same.

In this piece, we’ll talk through three of the most earth-shattering, terror-inducing inventions of the late 19th century: electricity, elevators, and automobiles. All three were feared, boycotted, protested, regulated… and, ultimately, adopted.

Scary technologies can still succeed, but the initial, terrifying hurdle can only be cleared if entrepreneurs and inventors know how to build trust among the general public.

If you click here to keep reading, I’ll help you understand how scary technologies become less scary over time, and how entrepreneurs can hasten that transition.

No, seriously, go check it out.

The elevator section is the most interesting — no lie!

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