Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
FUTURE DOES
NOT NEED US?
GROUP 3
Thoughts about the picture
William Nelson Joy
• Born November 8, 1954
• an American Computer Engineer
• He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982
• He also wrote the 2000 essay Why The Future
Doesn't Need Us, in which he expressed deep
concerns over the development of modern
technologies.
William Nelson Joy
• In 2000, Joy gained notoriety with the publication of his article in Wired
Magazine, Why The Future Doesn't Need Us, in which he declared, in
what some have described as a "neo-Luddite" position
• He was convinced that growing advances in genetic
engineering and nanotechnology would bring risks to humanity.
• He argued that intelligent robots would replace humanity, at the very
least in intellectual and social dominance, in the relatively near future.
William Nelson Joy
• He supports and promotes the idea of abandonment of GNR
(genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics) technologies, instead of
going into an arms race between negative uses of the technology
and defense against those negative uses (good nano-machines
patrolling and defending against Grey goo "bad" nano-machines).
• This stance of broad relinquishment was criticized by technologists,
also Joy was criticized by The American Spectator, which
characterized Joy's essay as a (possibly unwitting) rationale
for statism.
William Nelson Joy’s Argument
• Joy’s worries focus on the transforming technologies of the
21st century—genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics
(GNR). What is particularly problematic about them is that
they have the potential to self-replicate.
• This makes them inherently more dangerous than 20th-
century technologies—nuclear, biological, and chemical
weapons—which were expensive to build and require rare
raw materials.
• By contrast, 21st-century technologies allow for small
groups or individuals to bring about massive destruction.
• Joy accepts that we will soon achieve the
computing power necessary to implement
some of the scenarios envisioned
by Kurzweil and Moravec, but worries that
we overestimate our design abilities. Such
hubris may lead to disaster.
JOY’S CONCLUSION