Stephanie Errigo
Dr. Adam Johns
Option #3
Should We Really Fear What We Can Control?
For years upon years we have talked about the threats of technology including the real and surreal images of what will happen as it continues to progress. Should we fear robots and nanotechnology? Should we shove these things to the side and only concern ourselves with the problems that face us today such as the real estate market or the economic crisis? How much is too much to worry about? If all we focused on in our lives was the threat of technology and how scared we are of it overtaking us we would get nowhere, though Frankenstein does help us gain a better understanding for where Bill Joy is coming from in his article in Wired magazine.
The main overview of Frankenstein includes many aspects of what kind of person we may perceive Victor Frankenstein to be. We could see him as the evil in the book or even as just a coward who ran from their problems. Whatever we see Frankenstein as; the book shows us that technology can be a scary thing. Victor thought that his creation was the greatest thing until he brought it to life. In the book it states, “His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! – Great God!” (Shelley, 58) The quote comes from before Victor brought the monster to live. A few sentences later he goes on to say, “…But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” (58)
As the book goes on Victor abandons the monster, and becomes fearful of everything that it is capable of doing. Maybe if he would have treated the monster with care and not ran from him, he could have prevented all of the bad things that happened such as his brother being killed and ultimately saved himself. Joy is justified in many ways in what he presents in his article by the book Frankenstein.
In Joy’s article, “Why the future doesn’t need us,” he says, “How soon could such an intelligent robot be built? The coming advances in computing power seem to make it possible by 2030. And once an intelligent robot exists, it is only a small step to a robot species – to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself. “(Joy, 7) Bill Joy is a computer genius who has made many advances in today’s software, and he fears technology taking over? Something is obviously wrong with this picture. It makes me think of a strong connection to Frankenstein in which Joy could have seen his creation as beautiful when he first came up with it, but later he saw that the more that technology advances, the worse things can become. It also makes me wonder if the monster in Frankenstein would have been able to self-replicate that there would have been much more destruction done. If the future is like what Bill Joy fears and Victor Frankenstein also feared, we are in deep trouble.
Who’s to say that we can’t control these things from happening? We indeed did create all of the technology that is out there. Joy may see the world as being a Frankenstein scenario where the technology we create is abandoned and that’s how it goes about taking over. Frankenstein gives us a better outlook on what Joy may be thinking. Victor feared what he had created after he brought it to life, but not before. Who knows what will happen in years to come? We can only hope that we create doesn’t overtake what we have become.
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2 comments:
I don't see a real argument in your introduction - some relevant thoughts, sure, but what are you trying to *say* here? If F. helps us to better understand Joy, you ought to be able to say something about *how*.
I didn't understand much about this paper until I hit this: "It makes me think of a strong connection to Frankenstein in which Joy could have seen his creation as beautiful when he first came up with it, but later he saw that the more that technology advances, the worse things can become."
This is good material - this metaphor could, in fact, be in your introduction, and could be the basis for your (presumably positive) understanding of Joy. Up until this, the paper was confusing. Here, it made sense.
Your conclusion is almost as vague as your introduction.
Your most important task here is to *focus*. What are you trying to prove? Presumably that Joy is right, and that he has seen the horror in his own creations, as Victor did - and yet you spend much of your time showing how problematic, or even wrong, Victor's rejection of the monster is. This seems like a contradiction to me - what are you really trying to do?
Stephanie Errigo
Dr. Adam Johns
Option #1
Should We Really Fear What We Can Control?
For years upon years we have talked about the threats of technology including the real and surreal images of what will happen as it continues to progress. Should we fear robots and nanotechnology? Should we shove these things to the side and only concern ourselves with the problems that face us today such as the real estate market or the economic crisis? How much is too much to worry about? If all we focused on in our lives was the threat of technology and how scared we are of it overtaking us we would get nowhere, though Frankenstein does help us gain a better understanding for where Bill Joy is coming from in his article in Wired magazine. Frankenstein helps us understand Joy’s article by bringing to light that Joy could be just as afraid as Frankenstein was of the technology he had created.
The main overview of Frankenstein includes many aspects of what kind of person we may perceive Victor Frankenstein to be. We could see him as the evil in the book or even as just a coward who ran from their problems. Whatever we see Frankenstein as; the book shows us that technology can be a scary thing. Victor thought that his creation was the greatest thing until he brought it to life. In the book it states, “His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! – Great God!” (Shelley, 58) The quote comes from before Victor brought the monster to life. A few sentences later he goes on to say, “…But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” (58)
As the book goes on Victor abandons the monster, and becomes fearful of everything that it is capable of doing. Maybe if he would have treated the monster with care and not ran from him, he could have prevented all of the bad things that happened such as his brother being killed and ultimately saved himself. Joy is justified in many ways in what he presents in his article by the book Frankenstein.
In Joy’s article, “Why the future doesn’t need us,” he says, “How soon could such an intelligent robot be built? The coming advances in computing power seem to make it possible by 2030. And once an intelligent robot exists, it is only a small step to a robot species – to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself. “(Joy, 7) Bill Joy is a computer genius who has made many advances in today’s software, and he fears technology taking over? Something is obviously wrong with this picture. Frankenstein saw his creation as beautiful and break-taking until he brought it to life. Instead of being happy, he ran and feared the monster. In the same sense Joy is a father of software who created many software applications such as Java. He could be the same as Frankenstein in the way that Joy thought he creation of new software and technology was great in the beginning, but now he is seeing where technology has advanced to, and is fearful for the future. It also makes me wonder if the monster in Frankenstein would have been able to self-replicate that there would have been much more destruction done. If the future is like what Bill Joy fears and Victor Frankenstein also feared, we are in deep trouble.
Who’s to say that we can’t control these things from happening? We indeed did create all of the technology that is out there. Joy may see the world as being a Frankenstein scenario where the technology we create is abandoned and that’s how it goes about taking over. Frankenstein gives us a better outlook on what Joy may be thinking. Victor feared what he had created after he brought it to life, but not before. Joy may also be apprehensive of what he “brought to life” just like Frankenstein. Fear of the unknown can drive a person mad. Who knows what will happen in years to come? We can only hope that we create doesn’t overtake what we have become.
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