(Vox) – We’re painfully aware that we are vulnerable, fallible creatures. Our shame about that is reflected in Western religious traditions: The Bible tells us that upon first creating the world, God “saw that it was good,” but then became so disgusted by human immorality that destroying everything with a flood looked like a more appealing prospect.

Optimizing makes being human feel less risky. It provides a sense of control. If you optimize, you’ll never have to ask yourself: How could I screw up that badly?

It’s an understandable impulse. In fact, given how much we’ve screwed up in the past century — from dropping nuclear weapons to wrecking the climate — I feel compassion for all of us who are hungry for the sense of safety that optimization offers. But trying to make ourselves into robots means giving up something extravagantly precious: our humanity. (Read More)