Activity Title Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us A. Instructions: Answer the following questions. Please refer to this link for guidance: Link: Joy, Bill. "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us", Wired 8.04 (April 2000), accessed 12 April 2021, https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/ 1. Who is Bill Joy? What authority does he have to write on technology? Bill Joy is Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems, his job is about computer networking, where the sending and receiving of messages creates the opportunity for outof-control replication., he is more a computer architect than a scientist, and he enjoyed participating in the creation of advanced microprocessor technologies and Internet technologies such as Java and Jini. He has the authority to write on technology not just because of his job but also for the reason that his life has been driven by a deep need to ask questions and find answers. He work as code signer of three microprocessor architectures—SPARC, picoJava, and MAJC—and as the designer of several implementations he was bothered by the thought that his works or future work might affect or help in the extinction of human race also lead him to write about technology. 2. Does Joy agree or disagree with Kurzweil's basic claims? Explain. Joy didn’t agree with Kurzweil basic claims, that humans become robots or fuse with robots, humans merging with robots, Kurzweil”s vision of near immortality through robots which Joy’s assert that later can leads to an accumulation of great power and, concomitantly, great danger. He conducted his research to accumulate information and help individual to have a visual of what technologies might provide in the future, if those technology will bring wealth or not, which in Joy’s argument Kurzweil vision about robots will not bring us wealth or complete happiness but rather bring us to danger and human extinction. 3. Why, in Joy’s opinion, is humility necessary in developing technology? For Joy, when you are at the vertex of change it is always hard to see the bigger impact. Asserting that failing to understand the consequences of your own inventions while in the rapture of discovery and innovation seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists; because of the overarching desire to know, we are unable to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take on a life of its own. That is why, Humility is necessary in developing technology, humility to accept that there is a way that may be better than choosing a complicated and troubling one, knowing and accepting when to stop if necessary is a best attitude one must possess and eventually this attitude will prevent situations that you might regret at the end. 4. What is Joy’s dilemma, with respect to knowledge? How does he view it, compared with Oppenheimer? Joy understand that knowledge is good, as it is the search for new truths. Just like what Aristotle stated, “All men by nature desire to know." We tend to value the open access to information, as well as in recognizing the problems that may arise with the attempts in restricting access to it and in the development of knowledge. In recent times, we have come to revere scientific knowledge. But despite the strong historical precedents, if open access to and unlimited development of knowledge henceforth puts us all in clear danger of extinction, for example, the effort to build the first atomic bomb which led by Robert Oppenheimer, wherein the bomb killed a million of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But despite of the tragedy that happened 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." because of launching that kind of destructive invention which comes from the human knowledge. If this is the kind of attitude towards knowledge, then it is not good at all, therefore by the common sense demands that we reexamine even these basic, long-held beliefs. 5. In the passage beginning “If we could agree, as a species, what we wanted …”, do you get the feeling Joy is expressing a longing? What is it for? In the passage, Joy expressing a longing for humanness, if only humankind agree as one of what we want, where we headed, and why, where we understand what we can hold and what we must give up, then that’s when we can make our future much less dangerous. 6. Summarize Joy’s thesis. In Joy’s thesis “Why the Future Doesn't Need Us” he discusses the effect of the new emerging technologies which others claims that will help the human race in dealing with the recent and future problem but the truth is might as well help in the extinction of human race. Although Joy is not a Luddite, because he as his own create or helps in making technologies, still he is worried about what these technologies will cause an impact to the humanity. Joy argues that developing technologies provide a much greater danger to humanity than any technology before has ever presented which he connects it with the novel The White Plague as a potential nightmare scenario, in which a mad scientist creates a virus capable of wiping out humanity. But instead of scientist creating virus, scientist creates destructive bombs which can wipe out a country, and robots which can replace humans and allow human to be immortal. Joy also voices concern about increasing computer power. He worries that computers will eventually become more intelligent than we are, leading to such dystopian scenarios as robot rebellion. And by these changes brought by technology Joy expresses concerns that eventually the rich will be the only ones that have the power to control the future robots that will be built, and that these people could also decide to take life into their own hands and control how humans continue to populate and reproduce. He started doing more research into robotics and people that specialize in robotics, and outside of his own thoughts he tried getting others opinions on the topic. By collecting information, he concluded that we would create additional threats to ourselves by pursuing those weapons such as bombs and robots, and that we would be more secure if we did not pursue them. We each seek to be happy, but it would seem worthwhile to question whether we need to take such a high risk of total destruction to gain yet more knowledge and yet more things; common sense says that there is a limit to our material needs—and that certain knowledge is too dangerous and is best forgone and also neither should we pursue near immortality without considering the costs, without considering the commensurate increase in the risk of extinction. Immortality, while perhaps the original, is certainly not the only possible utopian dream. 7. On what ethical principles would you say Joy bases his critique of technology? He found an idea in the book Ethics for the New Millennium, by the Dalai Lama, wherein it argues that the most important thing is for us to conduct our lives with love and compassion for others, and that our societies need to develop a stronger notion of universal responsibility and of our interdependency; he proposes a standard of positive ethical conduct for individuals and societies that seems consonant with Attali's Fraternity utopia. In the book, it further argues that we must understand what it is that makes people happy, and acknowledge the strong evidence that neither material progress nor the pursuit of the power of knowledge is the key—that there are limits to what science and the scientific pursuit alone can do. That creating robots that might replace or can gives us immortality can lead us to happiness. 8. Joy believes that “we must find alternative outlets for our creative forces, beyond the culture of perpetual economic growth …” What should we say to future generations who will face prospects of less prosperity than their parents if we curtail the technological development that drives economic growth? This growth has largely been a blessing for several hundred years, but it has not brought us complete happiness, but we must now choose between the pursuit of unrestricted and undirected growth through science and technology and the clear accompanying dangers. Perils are inevitable, that is why you must be careful of what decisions and action you will make, because failure in identifying the consequences of your actions will lead you to risk and undesirable situation. 9. “Each of us has our precious things,” Joy says, “and as we care for them, we locate the essence of our humanity. In the end, it is because of our great capacity for caring that I remain optimistic we will confront the dangerous issues now before us.” Do you share his optimism? Explain. Yes, indeed each one of us has our precious things that we care and wanted to protect. By means of protecting, we must be careful of what are the choices and actions we take. Evaluating and knowing the consequences before actually doing it, is a must. Being optimistic that through the helps from the people we care and love, we can face the future with hope and attain a successful outcome of the hardships that humanity facing right now. 10. Are you more in agreement with Kurzweil or with Joy? Why? After I read the thesis of Joy “Why the Future Doesn't Need Us” I agree with Joy that others technology will create chaos to humans if the intention of creating it will lead to a harmful effect to humanity. With Kurzweil's dream, “near immortality through robotics” wherein humans will be replaced by robots, the human’s capacity to understand and make decisions even memories will be pass and installed to robot to be immortal. This kind of solution to human dilemmas is not the most desirable utopia, and its pursuit brings clear dangers. That’s why we should rethink our utopian choices.
