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"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
An individual, uneducated observer might not be able to tell them apart, but that doesn't mean there isn't a distinction.
One of the avengers movies dropped that line, and I feel like it's spread like wild fire since then, and it's just objectively not correct.
It's actually one of Arthur C Clarke's "laws."
Sorry but I've got to "well actually" this one though. Happipy, it's a simple misunderstanding. _The quote is from the perspective of the uneducated observer. _ To the one who understands the technology, sure there's absolutely a difference. But if I were to go back to ancient Rome and somehow facetime someone from what appeared to be a polished stone, it'd absolutely be considered magic. Even if I fully understood the difference. (Most limitations would be explained away as most magic in stories has limitations or rules, a wizard using a staff or needing ingredients etc.)
Understood - what I'm saying though is that it's a bad quote. It doesn't convey that it's indistinguishable only to people who don't know any better, it just says that it's indistinguishable, which again is objectively not correct. The cell phone in ancient Rome would absolutely be considered magic... in error, by people who don't understand what they're seeing; and limitations on magic doesn't make it suddenly not magic - just cuz some fiction establishes that you need a newt eye, 2 raccoon penises, and a 1/2 cup of sugar to summon a magma demon doesn't mean it wouldn't be creating a ton of energy and matter.
I could say a spruce and a pine are indistinguishable just because my dumb ass doesn't know the difference - but I'd be wrong.
I always interpreted Clarke's Law as first fixing an observer.
Then there exist technologies that are sufficiently advanced that the observer can only understand as magic.
Obviously someone had to understand it to make it in the first place, but there are (or will be) even more advanced technologies that that someone couldn't understand either.