Humanity is in the midst of a crucial social and economic transformation: whether we know it or not, we have entered the early stages of the fourth industrial revolution. In much the same way as steam engines, internal combustion, and the internet were among the innovations that marked the first, second, and third industrial revolutions respectively, this fourth revolution is marked by machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, blockchain, Big Data, gene editing, implantable devices, and — potentially — quantum computing. These technologies blur the lines between the physical, digital, and biological realms, as well as between human and machine cognition.  

The theme that pervades most of these ever-shi