"The machine is only a tool after all, which can help humanity progress faster by taking some of the burdens of calculations and interpretations off its back. The task of the human brain remains what it has always been; that of discovering new data to be analyzed, and of devising new concepts to be tested." (Isaac Asimov, "I, Robot", 1950)
"A man could change his politics, his friends, his religion, his country, but Men’s tools were a part of his body. Having used a high-powered rifle, the man subsumed the weapon, made it a part of himself. Trading it for a stone axe would be like cutting off his arm. Man was a user of tools, a shaper of environments." (Walter M Miller Jr, "Way of a Rebel", 1954)
"It was a species which often considered itself to be, basically, a race of divinely inspired toolmakers; any intelligent entity from Arcturus would instantly have perceived them to be, basically, a race of impassioned after-dinner speech-makers." (Walter M Miller Jr, "A Canticle for Leibowitz", 1959)
"We’ve been slaves to our tools since the first caveman made the first knife to help him get his supper. After that there was no going back, and we built till our machines were ten million times more powerful than ourselves. We gave ourselves cars when we might have learned to run; we made airplanes when we might have grown wings; and then the inevitable. We made a machine our God." (John Brunner, "Judas", 1967)
"Don’t dismiss the computer as a new type of fetters. Think of it rationally, as the most liberating device ever invented, the only tool capable of serving the multifarious needs of modern man." (John Brunner, "The Shockwave Rider", 1975)
"Technology is both a tool for helping humans and for destroying them. This is the paradox of our times which we're compelled to face." (Frank Herbert, [interview with Tim O'Reilly], 1983)
"‘The aliens [...] are still a mystery to us. We exchange facts, descriptions, recipes for tools, but the important questions do not lend themselves to our clumsy mathematical codes. Do they know of love? Do they appreciate beauty? Do they believe in God, hey?" (Michael Swanwick," Ginungagap", 1980)
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." (Philip K Dick, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later", 1985)
"Somewhere in its history, every technological species will make the tools to become godlike. Immortal citizens will be capable of building worlds, or obliterating them. How a species responds to the challenge... well, that’s what determines its fate, more often than not." (Robert Reed, ‘‘Sister Alice’’ (1993)
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