The core of the book is whether smart technologies could re-engineer humanity and make people act like simple machines. The authors critically analyse current trends in internet technology, which make people’s life easier, at the same time taking control of it, and explain how the idea of designing programmable worlds is closely related to the engineering of predictable and programmable humans. Having said that, the book is an example of a reasoned and well-balanced set of arguments, neither an alarmist screed, nor an additional voice among the detractors of human enhancement. Frischmann
and Selinger are fully aware of the worries and troublesome prognosis regarding what machines can do, especially the risk that machines might sap our humanity, issues which have been widespread for as long as machines have existed. In modern and contemporary times, an instrumentalist view
of existence in a broad sense has increasingly and pervasively influenced our understanding of ourselves and has shaped accordingly the kind of societies we build up and live in. ‘Techno-social engineering refers to processes where technologies and social forces align and impact how we think, perceive, and act’ (p.4). Quid novi?