http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html One of my favourite Wired articles, by the co-founder of Sun Microsystems Bill Joy. A defining essay for the intersection of technology and society from somebody who has been at the forefront of it all. Published in 2000, I think it is even more relevant today. I'm not a neo-Luddite, but I feel this piece provokes a lot of thought about how the future will be shaped. Some favourite passages of mine, as the piece itself is quite long: "So I flew to Los Angeles for the express purpose of having dinner with Danny and his wife, Pati. I went through my now-familiar routine, trotting out the ideas and passages that I found so disturbing. Danny's answer - directed specifically at Kurzweil's scenario of humans merging with robots - came swiftly, and quite surprised me. He said, simply, that the changes would come gradually, and that we would get used to them. But I guess I wasn't totally surprised. I had seen a quote from Danny in Kurzweil's book in which he said, "I'm as fond of my body as anyone, but if I can be 200 with a body of silicon, I'll take it." It seemed that he was at peace with this process and its attendant risks, while I was not." ----- "Much of my work over the past 25 years has been on computer networking, where the sending and receiving of messages creates the opportunity for out-of-control replication. But while replication in a computer or a computer network can be a nuisance, at worst it disables a machine or takes down a network or network service. Uncontrolled self-replication in these newer technologies runs a much greater risk: a risk of substantial damage in the physical world. Each of these technologies also offers untold promise: The vision of near immortality that Kurzweil sees in his robot dreams drives us forward; genetic engineering may soon provide treatments, if not outright cures, for most diseases; and nanotechnology and nanomedicine can address yet more ills. Together they could significantly extend our average life span and improve the quality of our lives. Yet, with each of these technologies, a sequence of small, individually sensible advances leads to an accumulation of great power and, concomitantly, great danger." ----- "The dream of robotics is, first, that intelligent machines can do our work for us, allowing us lives of leisure, restoring us to Eden. Yet in his history of such ideas,Darwin Among the Machines, George Dyson warns: "In the game of life and evolution there are three players at the table: human beings, nature, and machines. I am firmly on the side of nature. But nature, I suspect, is on the side of the machines." ----- "Given the incredible power of genetic engineering, it's no surprise that there are significant safety issues in its use. My friend Amory Lovins recently cowrote, along with Hunter Lovins, an editorial that provides an ecological view of some of these dangers. Among their concerns: that "the new botany aligns the development of plants with their economic, not evolutionary, success." ----- "It's important to realize how shocked the physicists were in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945. They describe a series of waves of emotion: first, a sense of fulfillment that the bomb worked, then horror at all the people that had been killed, and then a convincing feeling that on no account should another bomb be dropped. Yet of course another bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki, only three days after the bombing of Hiroshima. In November 1945, three months after the atomic bombings, Oppenheimer stood firmly behind the scientific attitude, saying, "It is not possible to be a scientist unless you believe that the knowledge of the world, and the power which this gives, is a thing which is of intrinsic value to humanity, and that you are using it to help in the spread of knowledge and are willing to take the consequences." Two years later, in 1948, Oppenheimer seemed to have reached another stage in his thinking, saying, "In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge they cannot lose."" ----- "It was Nietzsche who warned us, at the end of the 19th century, not only that God is dead but that "faith in science, which after all exists undeniably, cannot owe its origin to a calculus of utility; it must have originated in spite of the fact that the disutility and dangerousness of the 'will to truth,' of 'truth at any price' is proved to it constantly." It is this further danger that we now fully face - the consequences of our truth-seeking. The truth that science seeks can certainly be considered a dangerous substitute for God if it is likely to lead to our extinction." ----- As Thoreau said, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us"; and this is what we must fight, in our time. The question is, indeed, Which is to be master? Will we survive our technologies? ----- "And yet I believe we do have a strong and solid basis for hope. Our attempts to deal with weapons of mass destruction in the last century provide a shining example of relinquishment for us to consider: the unilateral US abandonment, without preconditions, of the development of biological weapons. This relinquishment stemmed from the realization that while it would take an enormous effort to create these terrible weapons, they could from then on easily be duplicated and fall into the hands of rogue nations or terrorist groups." My thoughts: This was written 15 years ago by Sun Microsystems, Inc. co-founder Bill Joy. It gets more relevant with each passing year. We are on the verge of incredible things: Ray Kurzweil wants to resurrect a fragment of his dead father with artificial intelligence. Nanotechnology and stem cell research may lead to the cure for blindness. Bionic legs are already being used to help the lame walk. Humans used to create gods by etching stories of their feats in papyrus and stone. The 21st century may offer the opportunity to create them in flesh and steel. Here's the tricky part about creating gods: they can go awry. They can become filled with wrath. The reason so many smart people are concerned about artificial intelligence is simple: they don't know when the next, great breakthrough will happen. But when it does, it may be the last scientific discovery man can make. I'm not a neo-Luddite, but there's an ebb and a flow to everything, a river of pebbles, each one an argument worth turning over. A sentient self-replicating machine would quickly expose the weakness inherent in our biology and exploit our dependence on technology. Such a machine could destroy the financial system in a matter of seconds by overloading front-running algorithms and taking advantage of every informational arbitrage possible, rendering electronic trading in shares pointless. And that would barely scratch the surface of what could happen. The balance between the incredible miracles of technology and the incredible terrors of what could be will be the tightrope we will all walk building the future. As Joy puts it: "Thoreau said, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us"; and this is what we must fight, in our time. The question is: will we survive our technologies?" Do you think the future will be better or worse and what do you think we should do with technology that has incredible potential to both nurture and extinguish human lives?
At some point the dominance of mammals (if you can call it dominance, since Insects are much more successful than Mammals) will end. And another class or Phylum will take over.
Northside, two questions: 1) Do you have a comment yourself or are you just going to quote random snippets and say "please discuss"? 2) Do you have a job?
It's kinda vague what you want to discuss. While I like the article and premise, there's many potential topics inside
Valid point. I've updated the context of the thread with something I had up as a post. "This was written 15 years ago by Sun Microsystems, Inc. co-founder Bill Joy. It gets more relevant with each passing year. We are on the verge of incredible things: Ray Kurzweil wants to resurrect a fragment of his dead father with artificial intelligence. Nanotechnology and stem cell research may lead to the cure for blindness. Bionic legs are already being used to help the lame walk. Humans used to create gods by etching stories of their feats in papyrus and stone. The 21st century may offer the opportunity to create them in flesh and steel. Here's the tricky part about creating gods: they can go awry. They can become filled with wrath. The reason so many smart people are concerned about artificial intelligence is simple: they don't know when the next, great breakthrough will happen. But when it does, it may be the last scientific discovery man can make. I'm not a neo-Luddite, but there's an ebb and a flow to everything, a river of pebbles, each one an argument worth turning over. A sentient self-replicating machine would quickly expose the weakness inherent in our biology and exploit our dependence on technology. Such a machine could destroy the financial system in a matter of seconds by overloading front-running algorithms and taking advantage of every informational arbitrage possible, rendering electronic trading in shares pointless. And that would barely scratch the surface of what could happen. The balance between the incredible miracles of technology and the incredible terrors of what could be will be the tightrope we will all walk building the future. As Joy puts it: "Thoreau said, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us"; and this is what we must fight, in our time. The question is: will we survive our technologies? I'm still searching; there are many more things to learn."
1) see updated post, and reply to Invisible Fan 2) one of my jobs involves thinking about technology and writing about it, which makes threads like this a bit of a copy + paste job. Incidentally, if you follow Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, or VentureBeat, then you might have read me (still working on the Atlantic and Wired).
But have you ever dated a p*rn star or worked as a male model who gets compliments from Karl Lagerfeld? And where would I have read you? In the comments section?
First, probably not. too much time at a computer screen to date p*rn stars or work as a male model One article I wrote on a cryptocurrency community in Colorado specifically aligned around legal mar1juana got reposted by Vice--which was a lot of fun. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find it.
And by the way, I think this can become an interesting thread. I am personally interested in it, but like Invisible Fan, I am still not sure I understand what you are trying to tell us (even after your edit). You are asking questions and speaking in generalities, but I can't make much of it. And yes, I read TechCrunch and VentureBeat every day.
I doubt it. Can we kill all the Chordata, yes I believe we can if we tried. But we cannot kill all animal life on earth (and not die our self in the process). that is why I said Phylum. And even if we succeed in killing all the individuals from the Animalia kingdom, other kingdoms will prevail.
hmm...yeah, it's a pretty complex topic, and it's my bad if I'm not formulating it correctly. I guess what I am trying to get at is a discussion between the incredible potential technology can offer balanced with the incredible danger that comes with it. Do you think the future will be better or worse and what do you think we should do with technology that has incredible potential to both save and harm lives? --I'm on pretty good terms with Dylan from VB, less good with Alexia from TC (maybe) lol. As you seem to be really into tech, I've also written with TNW. Would you be going to their conference by any chance?
Please discuss replaced with "Do you think the future will be better or worse and what do you think we should do with technology that has incredible potential to both save and harm lives? "
It's actually funny that you brought up Bill Joy, because I was just reading an article that opens with him. https://hbr.org/2014/05/can-you-crowdsource-a-big-idea/ Weird how the Sun Microsystems co-founders are still very relevant. Bill Joy is one of two I have not met and talked to yet.
Humans continue to replicate without any sense of why, a purely logical machine wouldn't. Any extrapolation extended far enough ends up being futile. If you could do simulations for billions of alternatives over billions of years I'm pretty sure the endings will all be the same, oblivion. A sentient machine would probably conclude, "why bother".
Technology always benefits somebody or group, it's just how you look at it. To put this in context, when the first automobiles came out, it was hailed as an ecological miracle to reduce the mountain piles of horse**** building up at every city. Taken to scale, any innovation could have detrimental effects (e.g. chlorine, DDT, CFCs, asbestos) Scale continues to be an inexorable problem confronting civilization's growth in size and complexity. The concept of a mayor or governor sprang when cities and towns were normally in the high thousands, yet is still applied for populations in the millions. With relative global economic instability now compared to the last half century, tech innovation, aka the next big thing, is looked on as the last resort for continued global growth rather than other means. History has shown that society is slow to adjust against technological swings. How it adjusts to its consequences like pollution, rising social classes, and geopolitical shifts as a result of changed markets happens in span of decades rather than keeping pace with the exponential rates expected by Moore's Law. It just so happens that the organizations that spring up from them, companies and governments, are even slower. So yeah, we potentially have a lot working against us. I don't think it's reason to go back to our caves. If anything, its our societal/cultural approach to things that'll **** us up, rather than one genocidal skynet/zombie bug/asteroid/global warming event. Humanity is pretty hardy, but the backward ideas that spring up from its survivors is far more resilient.
That looks like a great read, and I look forward to finishing it (someday.) I think a lot of the near term innovations are going to cut both ways. As smart phones proliferate developing nations, millions of formerly impoverished people will innovate economic/service-based solutions to their problems as they share access to a network that connects them. It's a matter of time before Google gets their self-driving cars on the road. Once they are there, it's a short jump to connecting it to an Uber-like service. This will be a big boon to lower-middle class and poor families that can reap the benefits of door-to-door transportation on demand without the investment in a vehicle, fuel, insurance, and maintenance. On the other hand, it will decimate the taxi and eventually truck driver employment. Robotics will continue to provide better more consistent products to us at lower prices, but will decimate employment in manual labor industries like fast food, agriculture, and construction. What we do with these millions of unemployed is an open question. In the longer term, we have scarier stuff on the horizon. Nano tech. Cell-sized robots that could swim through your body and destroy cancers and blood clots, but what if a hacker could instruct it to lobotomize you? Genetic engineering. Bio weapons. Eventually, custom-engineering bacteria and viruses will be easy to do, and with it, an end-of the world scenario even more effective than nukes, IMO. This one scares me more because it would only take one zealot to unleash the end times. (I'm thinking 12 Monkeys here.) AI. I used to doubt the possibility of a man-made sentient being, but if a mind as great as Stephen Hawking's is warning us, then we have reason for concern. Overall, I'm an optimist. I think the fact that we've made it several generations beyond the invention of nukes is a good sign. I'm NOT taking that as a guarantee of future safety, I'm just saying it wasn't long ago that we really thought the End was pretty much already guaranteed, but nuclear annihilation hasn't been a topic for quite a while now. It could be that our extremely self-interested instincts for survival can be an effective lever against our constant thirst for more and more advanced technologies. But on a long enough timeline...
