I remember, in the early millennium, reading Kurzweil’s idealism about the coming singularity, and feeling similar. So much of the advanced technology that he thought will soon be in the hands of ordinary people, could be potentially so lethal that obviously the state would feel the need to restrict it.

(That was one argument against Kurzweil’s vision. Another is that state regulation and licensing moves so slowly at each major technological change, that it would take us decades to get to the point he dreams of, not mere years. You aren’t going to see anything new rolled out in the healthcare sector without lots and lots of debating about it and drawing up paperwork first.)