This isn't a new problem at all. If you only started noticing it as a problem with "AI", as the author apparently did, then you were blind to how our mediums and tools have always shaped us, alienated us from the world and each other, and made us dependent on mechanism. This has happened hugely already with television.
You can go back and read McLuhan, he's great, but a recent and more approachable book on this is _God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning_.
Way back in 1969 the utopian vision of technology put humans at the centre. The Whole Earth Catalogue's slogan was “access to tools.” Just _tools_. That same year, technology put a man on the moon.
Unfortunately, if you realize the extent and the history of the problem, you see we're so far gone, miles away from getting a grip.
You can go back and read McLuhan, he's great, but a recent and more approachable book on this is _God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning_.
Way back in 1969 the utopian vision of technology put humans at the centre. The Whole Earth Catalogue's slogan was “access to tools.” Just _tools_. That same year, technology put a man on the moon.
Unfortunately, if you realize the extent and the history of the problem, you see we're so far gone, miles away from getting a grip.