Can we keep our technology from slipping out of control?

A Dangerous Master is reminiscent of—and sometimes even references—about a million popular books and movies: Robert Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil; Isaac Asimov's I, Robot; David Mitchell's The Bone Doctors; Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go; Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age; GATTACCA; The Matrix; The X Men; The Phantom Menace.

But while these works and the various dystopias they depict are characterized as speculative fiction, Wendell Wallach's book and the various dystopias it depicts warrant neither qualifier. They reside firmly in the real world—or could imminently, if we do not heed his warning to vigilantly track technological developments and constantly assess if the benefits they provide are worth the risks they inevitably engender.

All technological innovations, starting with the fire brought down from Olympus by Prometheus, are a hopelessly entangled mass of risks and benefits. Wallach is in a good position to know. He's chaired of the Technology and Ethics study group at Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics for most of its thirteen year existence. He knows that scientific inquiry and discovery will inevitably lead to technologies that can be used for ill as well as for good.