Frankly, whether it’s security, privacy, redistribution of jobs or whatever, things are simply moving too fast to understand, much less predict or plan for. If aviation, the automobile or just about any other significant technology had developed as the internet has in the last 20 years, the carnage and disruption would have probably been unimaginable - and none of those had the reach or social impact of the internet. That’s what makes the evolving internet society so interesting and in some ways scary at the same time.

It is true that the biggest problem is usually the human factor. That’s always the case – don’t buy a car made on a Monday as they say – at least the robots don’t get drunk on the weekends, but alas, the programmers may.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken