I think Frank Herbert hit it a bit more on the nose:

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Frank captures the motivation, the fact that it is desirable is the scary part.

Akin to the genetic engineering scene from Gattaca.

Aldous Huxley got there earlier with A Brave New World as well.

Speculative Fiction was ahead of the curve in that era.

Anyone want to recommend a book? Let me join in by suggesting the Asimov robot books, which I’ve just begun

Iain Bank's Culture series deals with self-conscious machines with the same rights and freedoms as humans. Each machine has a value denoting its mental equivalence to a human, and some starship Minds are close to gods (similar to comparing a human to amoeba).

'Never forget I am not this silver body, Mahrai. I am not an animal brain, I am not even some attempt to produce an AI through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side. ‘We are quicker; we live faster and more completely than you do, with so many more senses, such a greater store of memories and at such a fine level of detail. We die more slowly, and we die more completely, too. Never forget I have had the chance to compare and contrast the ways of dying.’ [1]

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12016.Look_to_Windward

Robot series is good, Foundation series by him is brilliant.

Also check out The Culture novels by Iain M Banks (he was the closest recent author to be a great the equal of Wells, Huxley or Orwell (imo) just a phenomenal writer).

The Polity series by Neal Asher are well imagined and he world builds brilliantly.

Brave New World by far is the most accurate book to date of what the modern world looks like. That's my strongest recommendation.

Fahrenheit 451 is also a solid read.

Second to Brave New World. It's startling how much that book seems like a map to where we're headed.

What you want to read by Asimov (much more relevant to the present topic), is this story "The Dead Past", (do not click on the below link as it would spoil it):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past

However the final words by Araman (which I won't cite, again to not spoil the effect) are memorable and very, very suited for these times.

The April 1956 "Astounding Science Fiction" where it was originally published is available via Internet Archive, read the story first (it is just 40 pages):

https://archive.org/stream/Astounding_v57n02_1956-04_Gorgon7...

Link to the .pdf:

https://archive.org/download/Astounding_v57n02_1956-04_Gorgo...

Everything you say counts towards your profile. It's the threat of social media framing or relationships, essentially.

I do't understand. What is "social media framing"?

Sorry, it should have been "framing your relationships". Today having a good profile in social media does have an impact on your social status. It's not difficult to imagine a future where things you say at home have an impact on how your profile gets presented to other people.

People often mistake plain and clear for shallow. I consider him an intellectual (and moral) giant.