Technology & Future for CAT RC, in 10 essays

AI, automation and digital life produce passages that weigh promise against risk. These essays train you to read forecasts and warnings critically, which is exactly what inference and tone questions test.

Read them in order: they go from easiest to hardest. Answer the questions under each before moving on.

1. 1The Luddites Who Did Not Hate MachinesThe name Luddite is now an insult for anyone who fears technology. The workers who earned it were something more interesting.Medium · 1 min
2. 2The Better Picture That Lost the Living RoomBetamax is often said to have lost despite being the better product, but the market was measuring something else.Medium · 2 min
3. 3The Sales Message That Taught the Early Internet to Fear AdvertisingA computer maker's marketing manager sent one invitation to many strangers in 1978, and the economics he stumbled on have outlived every objection.Medium · 2 min
4. 4The Machine IBM Built and the Standard It Could Not KeepIBM created the personal computer industry in a year. A decision made to save time left the profits of that industry with two of its suppliers.Medium · 2 min
5. 5The Mother Who Never TiresA reflective essay on humanoid caregivers, exploring whether perfect, optimized care can ever replace the messy, meaningful essence of human motherhood.Medium · 5 min
6. 6When Machines Begin to DeserveAs machines begin to act like thinkers, the line between tool and person blurs, forcing us to rethink what personhood truly means.Medium · 5 min
7. 7The Loneliest Relationship Is Not With a RobotArtificial companions do more than imitate intimacy. They expose the hidden assumptions that have always shaped how humans recognise love.Medium · 6 min
8. 8The Cloud Was Always a FactoryArtificial intelligence is reshaping the world, but hidden datacenters, rising energy use, and ecological costs reveal the true price of the AI revolution.Medium · 6 min
9. 9The Monk's Error, The Model's EchoAI systems increasingly learn from text that earlier AI systems wrote. History has seen this error before, in monasteries.Medium · 6 min
10. 10The Interlock Nobody Missed: An RC Inspired by IIM IndoreA cancer machine killed patients in the 1980s although every part did what it was built to do. The case shows how responsibility can vanish when a safeguard moves from metal into code.Hard · 2 min

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