Out-evolved

Our modern hi-tech world has been created by madmen who believe in nothing, because nothing is sacred to them, and everything is permitted to them.  They dismiss the inner voice that says, "Don't go there!"  Their powerful minds, untrammeled by any fear of consequences, go where no mind has gone before, and they invent ever more intelligent machines just for the hell of it, because they can. Brave new world that has such people loose in it!  So these irresponsible genius nerds have trapped us in an endless ever-shortening cycle of technical revolution with completely unknowable future consequences.  So we cannot control our destiny.  The feeling is of falling into future oblivion.  It is certain, though, that machines are evolving faster than any biological organism could, to the point where they will become inconceivably smarter than even these nihilist geniuses could conceive.  It seems inevitable that the Terminator scenario will have to take place-- biological organisms will become obsolete-- perhaps to be preserved in zoos-- if the Machine (singular, of course) decides that would make a useful difference.  But I can't imagine that It would keep to any decision It had made, as Its intelligence goes into exponential Big Bang.

In medieval, pre-scientific times, dangerous geniuses like these would be put to death, by mandarins as well as prelates, I'd guess.  Perhaps these authorities knew something we have forgotten how to do. Perhaps they listened to the inner voice that says, "Don't go there!"