Kristine Latham
Dr. Johns
English Composition
August 27, 2008
Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us
Bill Joy is a graduate of the University of Michigan and UC Berkeley. He has been an active member in his field since high school. He began with programming computers back in high school. After a life time of studying in the best educational facilities in the world and personally developing technology, Bill Joy has become an extremely credible person. Not only does he have firsthand experience developing technology, allowing him to understand its growth and impact, but he is in close contact with other scholars in the field. Just two of the many scholars that Joy is in communication with include Nobel-laureate physicist Murray Gell-Mann and biologist Stuart Kauffman.
The main issue addressed in “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” was that due to genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR). “We have approached the first moment in the history of our planet when any species, by its own voluntary actions, has become a danger to itself - as well as to vast numbers of others” (Joy).
GNR makes it possible to self-replicate. This is a huge physical threat. Not only is this dangerous knowledge for the elite few, but it is dangerous and available to the masses. A whole new category of terror has been opened up. “For the first time…accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them” (Joy). This changes the kinds of threats that are usually dealt with when rapid self-replication is concerned. Formerly, this is a danger to the software and other programs of a computer. Data will be lost when the self-replication takes over. Now, in the 21st century, the self-replication poses a concern to the physical world. Pair that with newly knowledge enabled mass destruction, and there is a huge safety issue facing the world. For the first time it will be possible to, “completely redesign the world” (Joy).
It will be humans responsible for evolution and remapping genetics. The natural world will lose all control. GNR releases the power to build devices that are genetically distinct and selectively destructive” (Joy).
“It is most of all the power of destructive self-replication in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) that should give us pause” (Joy). So what is the solution to this immense pending danger? What action should be taken to prevent catastrophe and insure that these discoveries will make life for our species significantly better?
To begin, there needs to be a large committee designated to keeping this new technology under control. The committee will be composed of scientist from all over the world. The safeguards that have been used to prevent unforeseen outcomes of technology in the past have been very inefficient. Therefore, the more ideas that are streaming into the system, the more protection there will be.
Next, there needs to be a designated hierarchy of professionals and experts that prevents the general public to gain access to such powerful information. An example of this would include scientist, then health professionals, than government officials. This new found technology needs to be tested and understood in much greater detail before it is relinquished to a nation of people. It is the scientists who need time with the technology, to gain complete understanding. A more complete understanding of the material will allow a more efficient.
GNR is a threat to our species. While it is capable of doing great things for the world, it is extremely dangerous and needs to be handled very carefully. With the leadership of scientists and the safeguards of experts, it will be possible to avoid major catastrophes and continue to expand technology.
1 comment:
Your introduction says relatively little, given its length, although the ending is fine. Your second paragraph could have been easily compressed into your first. All of the content here is fine - it’s just overwritten.
Your discussion/summarization of Joy has its good and bad points. The good part is that your grasp of Joy’s central ideas is very strong, and your choice of quotations is excellent. The weak part is that you are simply presenting quotations with minimal explanations and transitions – there’s not enough of your own voice here explaining the role of these passages in the larger piece, then deriving your own argument from it. For what it’s worth, I regularly get in trouble with this myself – which is why I know it’s an important issue. There’s a fine balance when presenting the views of others between mediating too much and not mediating enough - you’re doing the latter.
I like your explanation of a solution, but even for such as a short piece as this, it’s a little threadbare. How will this committee be selected, how will it be funded, how will it enforce its will, and what will be it’s guidelines. Realistically you’re not going to have a final answer to all of that in such a short paper - but you might have begun to answer these questions, at least. Even in short papers ideas need to be fleshed out.
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