at the moment Turing warned about, the instant where man and machine confront one another and man has to ask an uneasy political question: “Wow, do really I let this thing gatekeep me?” Who should rule in this new world? You? The New Caste? The machines? 4. The great test of Plato’s life began when he was 60 years old. He’d had an astonishing life until then, of course. He’d been taught by Socrates and, in turn, had sharpened the mind of Aristotle. He’d established his famous Academy in Athens. The puzzles of philosophy and politics that defined his city’s most turbulent era had been the work of his life. And you can see, in the careful lines of his writing, a sublime knowledge he must have had: There would be an echo to his efforts, a philosophic melody that would carry through the centuries and set political harmonies of the world you and IJ, 2500 years later, inhabit. But at 60, after this already remarkable life, he was presented with an unusual invitation. A letter arrived from a favorite former pupil, Dion, who had been placed in charge of the young king of Syracuse, Dionysus IJ. Dion wrote: The state is in disorder. The boy is interested in philosophy. Here is a chance for you to apply all you've mastered. Plato had argued, after all, that virtuous, philosophically trained men might just manage an enduring and just rule. “I pondered the matter,” Plato wrote. “And was in two minds as to whether | ought to listen to entreaties and go, or how I ought to act. Finally the scale turned in favor of the view that, if ever anyone was to try to carry out in practice my ideas about laws and constitutions, now was the time.” From an early age Plato had been bred - by family position and by temperament - to handle the tools of power. “In my youth | went through the same experience as many other men,” he once wrote. “I fancied that if, early in life, | became my own master, I should at once embark on a political career.” The first taste came unexpectedly. In 404 BC, the A