Headlines and commentaries declare that within a decade or two, robots and artificial intelligence will replace human workers, either leading us into an Eden where humans, finally freed from the mundane tasks of survival and earning a living, will be able to engage in “higher” pursuits, or consigning most of us to unemployment, misery, and subservience to machines, computers, and the technocratic elite who design and control them. Left unexplored in the articles is a paradox: how will technology replace mental functions of which our understanding is still so incomplete? Also generally unaddressed: the certainty that new innovation will elicit change and adaptive thinking, behavior, modes of interaction, and opportunities, as they have in the past.

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