Jakub

“The robot misconception is related to the myth that machines can’t control humans. Intelligence enables control: humans control tigers not because we’re stronger, but because we’re smarter. This means that if we cede our position as smartest on our planet, it’s possible that we might also cede control.”
― Max Tegmark, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

“It is always at my back,” he continued, “and sometimes it grows bold and its teeth are at my throat. It drags me down, and if I did not carry a shield against it, I could not get up from beneath its weight.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Elder Race

“As ETs they were about standard, but as men they were a bust, they just hadn't made it. Give 'em another million years, maybe. But the Conquistadors had arrived first. Evolution moved now not at the pace of a random mutation once a millennium, but with the speed of the starships of the Terran Fleet.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Word for World Is Forest

“We are dealing with what the aliens call Level Eight technology," Jasken said contemptuously. "You don't know what it might be capable of. We're like pre-wheel primitives looking at a screen and saying it can't work because nobody can re-draw a cave-painting that quickly.”
― Iain M. Banks, Surface Detail