Perhaps the most fascinating thing about reading this (a mere!) two years later is how much its speculative future, vivid and unsettling portrayal notwithstandi

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about reading this (a mere!) two years later is how much its speculative future, vivid and unsettling portrayal notwithstanding, is almost certainly no longer a possibility for ours. Imagine, simulating an entire human brain to perform tasks it turns out need only a vague, brute-forced approximation of our language centers! It's like Jules Verne imagining, in exquisitely plausible detail, a flying machine whose many complex mechanisms and articulations at last allow man to fly like the birds – only a few years before the Wright brothers prove all you need is a fixed wing, a few cleverly-placed flaps, and enough thrust.