The rest of us, the “normals”, are sleepwalking towards the apocalypse, posting Instagram pictures from our most recent Airbnb stay from the back of a self-driving Uber. The first of two episodes of Secrets of Silicon Valley (BBC2, Sunday) was a sobering look at how tech is going to change society quickly and dramatically. Bartlett visited a Silicon Valley mansion, where young engineers mostly had idealistic visions – one was inventing a way to reverse climate change, another was coming up with a plant-based burger. They tell themselves what all Silicon Valley inhabitants do – that making the world better, and making billions of dollars in the process, are not mutually exclusive. He begs Demelza to give him a “taste of heaven” and there, in the swaying long grass, she does.

Source: The Guardian August 07, 2017 04:52 UTC