Technology vs. Magic: One and the Same?

A great technologist and SF writer once said, "Supreme technology is synonymous with magic." Though technology is rooted in science, and magic in fantasy and superstition, both entities have a similar effect on people who witness them. Take for example, the laptop I am writing on right now. If I were to time-travel back to the Middle Ages, and show a knight and his lady this computer, he'd probably kill me on sight for being a "sorcerer," because he wouldn't know what to make of "The Internet," "IPhones" and "tablets." People tend to apply what they know or what they are familiar with to things that are unknown to them, even if the conclusions they make are wrong. People don't like it when things don't make sense, and they will always find ways to explain seemingly senseless but somehow orderly things, just the ways people do it now are different in nature than the way they explained things in the Middle Ages, for citizens of medieval Europe would have explained a computer as either witchcraft or a sign from God, we explain a computer today as a sign of a technologically advanced society. Even more exemplary of this point is my Samsung GalaxyTab, a tablet computer with an AI voice that will actually speak with you. It won't just speak with you, it will give you attitude depending on your tone of voice with it, engage in dialogue and even have conversations, it will answer questions and display answers as Web pages from Google and Yahoo, using the fastest search engine available at the time to bring me the exact information I require at any given moment, and it has a snotty, girly voice that reminds me of a Japanese anime girl, gets kind of funny too every now and then, because Samsung is a Korean company. Literally arguing with a machine that can, in part, think like a person is something that would have terrified a medieval peasant, or even a 19th-century aristocrat from Europe. It is just too "future shock." Still, AI and robotics are the next step in machine development, and the GalaxyTab is one of the most advanced of the new computers. Though, my friends and I like to joke that it's some young woman trapped in the tablet by an evil wizard...