1A: First Place
There is no denying that technology dominates modern life. The cell phone is quite
literally everywhere, capable of tracking its owner’s movements. If one ever looked at Google
Chrome’s Auto fill settings, it is quite unsettling how much information is known about a person.
Name, phone number, address, email. Add a social security number or a credit card and it is an
identity thief’s playhouse. Yet as smart as these machines are, they are far from intelligent. All of
the power Siri has was given to it by human beings through some clever programming. Today is
still a long way off from either a Mr. Data or a terminator. White AI may be a very frightening
prospect, it is much less horrifying than modern humans equipped with today’s technology with
a malicious intent.
As Weiner states humans “may not know, until too late, when to turn it off”. In case of
Jurassic Park, the off button should have been pressed before the dinosaurs were made. In the
book, Mr. Hammond’s park runs almost entirely on 1990’s computers trying to contain creatures
that have not taken breath in 65 million years. As the computer system begins to show problems
and the main programmer goes AWOL all of the dinosaurs get loose leading to the deaths of
several people including the park’s creator himself. The novel proves the point of “just because
one can doesn’t mean one should.” In 1990 computers just were not capable of running a system
so large. Indeed the internet barely existed. For example, the Mars Pathfinder website circa 1997
contained six links and required one to go through a menu page (nota drop-down menu like that
of the modern age, an actual page just to get where one wants to go) to visit any given part of the
site. It shall be interesting to see how such a park fares on modern technology when Jurassic
World is finally released.
When Norbert Wiener wrote “Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation”
many of today’s “intelligent machines” did not exist. Wiener did not have dial up let alone
LTE’s blowing fast speeds. It would be interesting to get his opinion now, especially on the war
machine. In the 1960’s the country was basically off of Truman and Eisenhower’s push for
nuclear weapons, which, while very frightening and lethal, could not be launched without human
input. Now, Unmanned Aerial Systems such as the Predator can hover above an area for days
waiting for an enemy to come out. What happens when such a weapon gets hacked and falls into
the wrong hands? Even if a terrorist cell does not manage to bring down a military UAS, civilian
drones are fairly easy to make, strap a bomb to, and send off to cause destruction. As shown by
the recent gyropter landing on the Capitol lawn, the nation’s capitol city has some serious
airspace issues to resolve. A drone is much smaller than any helicopter or airplane and multirotor designs are capable of flying as slow as any bird. In such a drone strike, there really can be
no way of knowing who to blame until someone tracks it, and there lies the terror.
Weiner talks of a “’push button’ nuclear war” which sounds strikingly similar to the
movie War Games. In the movie, a boy hacks into a war simulator missile array. While any
missile he shoots is hypothetical, the machine’s missile is all to real. Eventually the machine is
disarmed by forcing it into an infinite loop during a game of tic-tac-toe, the implications of such
a machine and its power to “do anything to win a nominal victory even a the cost of human
survival “are worrisome if the military does not pull the plug or indeed have no plug to pull when
the time comes.”
As frightening a machine like that is, it is still unintelligent. It may be able to “learn” in a
sense that it can find the simplest solution, the computer that could threaten humanity would
have to be able to think and change its programming to fit its ideals. Such machines are present
in the television series “Star Trek: the Next Generation.” In the show, Commander Data, an
android, is seen being able to think and at times come up with his own system of beliefs. Yet he
is not fully human in appearance. However, during one episode the crew finds a duplicate of
Data called lore who’s programming is slightly different allowing him to behave like a human.
This frightens the colonist with which he lived so he was dismantled and Data was made. This
may be the undoing of any computer wanting to rule the world. Human beings reach a point that
if a computer or robot is too humanlike, in either appearance or behavior, they begin to fear it.
However, what if people want to be controlled and assimilated into a
cyborg/technological society. The cellular phone, while almost always with people is not
connected to them. Yet society is moving in that direction. The Apple Watch is the first step,
having much of one’s phone’s functions right there on their wrist, but even it can be taken off.
What happens when technology becomes a parasite of sorts, feeding off the body’s energy to
give one texts directly to the brain. Possibly the more important question is what happens if the
server that controls such technology is taken over by a man or machine and an army of stolen
bodies is created? While the 1960’s atom bomb was deadly, at least it killed people instead of
forcing them to watch their bodies move without their command.
In conclusion, while nightmares like AI do cause people to think, they are just that,
nightmares. As the saying goes “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Technology is only
dangerous when it falls into the wrong human hands. In the year 2015 2001: A Space Odyssey’s
HAL 9000 is still just a thing of cinema (unfortunately, so are the spaceships). There is no
technology today that is capable of killing off humanity all by itself, and through the careful
work of future generations who know when to press the off switch, there never will be.
2A: First Place
Over thousands of years, humans have experienced several stages of evolution, from the
Neanderthals to the Cro-Magnons to the Homo sapiens we are today. However, humans have
evolved in more ways than just physically. From the most basic rock tools of the “cavemen” to
the mass automation of the Industrial revolution, humans have been using technology to evolve
into more sophisticated beings capable of accomplishing more and thinking at higher levels.
Today, technology has evolved to a point where machines can basically think much faster and
more comprehensively than humans. This has frightened some people, who envision a future of
oppressive robot overlords, but if we have this wonderful resource of technology than can think,
basically, better, than us then there is no reason we shouldn’t take advantage of it. If humans are
cautious in monitoring the capabilities of advanced technology and artificial intelligence, we can
use it to evolve into the most sophisticated humans yet.
The great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov imagines a future in which humans merge
with machines in his short story “The Last Question.” The story presents a series of scenes, each
set in a different future time period, in which humans ask their artificially intelligent
supercomputer, Multivac, the question, “Can entropy be reversed?” or, in other words, “Can we
prevent the universe from ultimately destroying itself?” Each time the question is asked,
Multivac has the same answer, “INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL RESPONSE.”
Over time, the humans in the story evolve alongside Multivac, both human and machine
becoming more technologically advanced. Finally, in the last scene of the short story, both
humans and Multivac are just consciences floating around in space. The humans ask the question
one last time and get the same response before merging with Multivac. Now alone in the
universe and possessing all the consciences of mankind, Multivac watches the stars blink away
one by one until the universe is nothing more. At last, the answer to “the last question” comes to
it, and it proclaims into the nothingness, “Let there be light!” This short story is an extreme,
fantastical version of human evolution, in which, after merging with machines, humans become
God. Of course, realistically this wouldn't happen, but as machines and humans grow closer
together, humans will become more sophisticated and capable of higher levels of thinking, just
like Homo sapiens are capable of higher levels of thinking than Neanderthals.
When most people think of humans and machines becoming one, they think of humans
becoming more and more like machines, not machines becoming like humans. However, this is
the case in the Oscar-nominated film, Her. In the film, the main character is a man who lives in a
future society dominated by technology in which artificial intelligence plays a huge role in daily
life. Each person has an earpiece that they have in at all times, with an artificially intelligent
operating system that can answer any questions they have, tell them their schedules, or perform
any number of tasks, much like the “personal assistants” built into smartphones today, such as
iPhone’s Siri. The main character of the movies purchases a new operating system, the most
advanced one yet, and as he talks and listens to “her” (the operating system) all day, he begins to
grow very close to her and think of her as another person. At this point in the movie, this man
starts to sound a little mentally unstable, but then the viewer starts to get the sense that the OS
genuinely likes the man back, like the machine is actually capable of feelings. Although the
movie ends with the operating system having to leave, Her provides an alternative example of
how humans and machines could evolve together, as it only makes sense that as humans evolve,
so will machines.
However, as the aphorism says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” It’s
important that humans are cautious in developing newer, better technology. Technological giants
like Bill Gates and Elon Musk have already issued warnings as to the power of artificial
intelligence. It’s important that humans don't blindly plunge ahead, thinking only of what can be
done, not what should be done. In this area, we can learn from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In
the novel, the protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, is completely consumed with the desire to
discover the secret of life. He works for months, not sleeping for day at a time, experimenting,
recording data, and coming up with new ideas. He doesn't think about what will happen once he
actually discovers the secret or what ramifications might accompany the creation of life. He
thinks of only the great service he’s providing humanity. When he finally succeeds in creating
life, he is horrified at the grotesqueness of the monster he’s created. At this point, though, it’s too
late for him to turn back. The monster, angry with his creator for making him such a wretched
creature, ruins Victor’s life by killing his loved ones, and eventually Victor dies in the pursuit of
his monster. The story of Victor provides an important lesson for the people developing artificial
intelligence today: even with the best intentions, things could go wrong. However, this doesn't
mean people shouldn't continue to experiment, learn, and evolve. We should absolutely continue
developing newer and better technology, just cautiously.
Humans are driven to become better, faster, stronger versions of ourselves, and
technology can help us do that. We’ve already naturally evolved from “cavemen” to modern
humans, and we can advance even further with the help of technology. Technology advances so
rapidly, and we do not know how far it can take us. Who knows, the next step in our evolution
could even be a race of techno sapiens.
3A: First Place
A Medical Professional’s Guide to Losing Life
The first step in becoming a true medical professional is believing that you will change
lives, that you are a warrior for life, and, yes, that you will never lose a patient under your caring
hands. The older doctors will scoff at you and your bright optimism. They see the light in the
young professional’s eyes, and with faces scarred by time and smirks sculpted by sorrow, they
will doubt your optimism. As a beginner in the infinite world of maladies, you will think that
your job is to fight death. Do anything and everything in your power to fight that cursed
destroyer of worlds, usher of nightmares, creator of pain and suffering. You were taught to use
any weapon available to you, that is of course, if the patient signs off on all the legalities. Scalpel
in hand, sterilized armor on, and a full cavalry of medical equipment behind you, you ride off
courageously into the battle against death in all its forms. You were taught to fight with
everything available to you, even if that battle lies inside another human’s body. This is
medicine, and in medicine, the end justifies the means. Stuff that body with morphine, poke
constellations in that work of dying art if it means breathing that beautiful breath of life for
another second. Go ahead and prescribe all the chemicals mined out of the corpse of the earth,
and go ahead and fill the stomach with a concoction of who-knows-what. You are a warrior after
all, and since the end justifies the means, you should do whatever if takes to drive the destroyer
of worlds from this single human body. But then, what if “the end” really is the end? What if
there is no tomorrow for your patient, and the hourglass is finally up? The string is cut, the last
petal fallen and disheveled. What now?
This is medical school: how to fix a broken body. How to artificially poison natural
poison. How to stop God for a few more days, years, decades. This is not medical school: how to
stay locked in a gaze with a dying man. How to wipe tears from the brimming eyes of a child
going nowhere. How to appreciate the impending darkness of a setting sun, how to smile at a
flower slowly un-blooming, how to partner dance in a burning room. The second step to
becoming a medical professional is accepting that you must learn to tend to a dead person. It’s
impromptu. It’s freestyle, it’s a sudden face-off with death, and no one taught you how to play
this game. The person lying in bed is yours. It’s a somebody who was a someone, and this body
is yours to harvest until death reaps it. How to? You will be terribly confused with failure and
choked up by fear; after all, as your patient’s hand shoots out before him, reaching into a
distance your eyes weren’t taught to see. Maybe you should shut the curtains to keep the light
out, or maybe your patient wants a glimmer of a last radiance. You wouldn’t know. The patient’s
hand in the air is now slowly gripping onto something. Could it be he is holding onto life? Is he
being handed back all of his memories? Is he holding onto God’s coattail? Should you hold his
hand, to have him have that last human connection before falling into the arms of cursed death?
You wouldn’t know. The MCAT never asked you this type of question. At the last second, you
do what you were taught to do. Use your weapons and fight death. You use every tool available
to you, and suddenly you remember that time in your childhood when you shook your dead
goldfish violently in its bag to only realize it had been dead and there was nothing left to do
about it. Death is death is death is death. Your patient’s hand is no longer out. It let go of
something, you don’t know what.
The medical amateur should then come to the conclusion that the third step to becoming a
true medical professional is letting people die. Let death reap what life has sown. From the
beginning, you had known that death is only a part of life, so why is it so hard to let a person die
in peace? Why had you shaken the poor little goldfish, why had you sent waves of electricity
through a body already gone. You let somebody die. The medical professional will then shut the
curtains, page somebody for clean up, remove his gloves disappointedly, all to the tune of a flat
line like in those medical dramas. You remember how that patient felt under your gloved hands.
Leathery, wrinkled skin or flesh, taught skin still ready to grow and be used. A shuddering breath
like a machine or a smooth, last exhale. Eyes that glimmered in the hope of rising again or eyes
that glimmered under the intense operating bulbs. Did they go quietly into the night or did they
rage against the dying of the light? Every memory is fresh on you like black, wet ink. You know
now, thought, that eventually that cadaver will only be a black tattoo in the darkest, foggiest
crevices of your mind, indistinguishable from the rest of the dead. You realize it is just another
body in the ground. Dust is to dust.
Many times, the medical professional will leave empty handed. No victory to take home.
The only thing the professional will come home with is questions. Questions and questions and
questions. Why didn’t I leave it alone? What is my job, my duty? Why didn’t medical school
teach me about death? You laugh at yourself. Why did I pay so much for medical school when I
wasn’t even taught to value you the process of life? The eternal sunrise and sunset of life…why
hadn’t you been taught to value the beauty of age? You can fancy the oldest wines and watch in
awe as somewhere in the world a hurricane rips through a town, but you still have yet to
appreciate the controlled, chaotic beauty of destruction. You know that out there, there are still
many health care providers who choose to fight death even when the battle is beyond ugly and
the battleground already worn and ready to crumble. You with that you had known since the
beginning to just let life and death play it’s game and simply let yourself and your patient be
pawns. Until the end of your career you will regret shaking that goldfish and you will never
know what that man was reaching for in the distance. Death is death is death is death and
sometimes it is absolutely beautiful.
4A: First Place
A Beautiful Ending
Humans have always had an uneasy relationship with death. Everyone understands, at
some level, that they will one-day experience it, but very few dwell on it. Medical science has
allowed modern people to live much longer, healthier lives, but has yet to banish the specter of
death completely. Throughout literature, history, and even current events, men and women have
struggled with the concept of death and its implications, both for themselves and for society as a
whole.
A preoccupation with death, and the afterlife that was believed to follow, can be traced
back to the earliest civilizations of antiquity. Ancient Egyptian culture was centered around
preparing for the afterlife, and the pharaohs went to great lengths to be ready for their eternal
demise. The pyramids, a direct result of this fixation with death, sometimes took decades to
build, and the process of mummification, intended to preserve the ruler’s body for use in the
afterlife, was costly and extraordinarily complicated. Whole segments of the Egyptian economy
were based entirely on the process of death, ensuring it maintained a central cultural niche.
The Egyptian cultural fascination with death stood in stark contrast with the attitudes held
by either northern neighbor, the Greeks. Personifying death as the god Hades, the Greeks saw
death as something to be feared and avoided, not extravagantly prepared for. Though Hades
occupied a central role as the oldest and one of the most powerful of the gods, there were not
temples build in his name. The lord of the underworld was not even considered one of the
Olympians highest of the gods, precisely because of the nature of his sphere of influence. Greeks
prepared for their afterlife by attempting acts of bravery and heroism, in hopes that even in death
they would avoid Hades’ influence in the field of Elysium. The aversion to death occupied such
a central role in Greek thought that many of their myths feature the descent of the hero into the
underworld, only to return in victory to the world above.
In contrast to the attitudes of celebratory preparation or grim acceptance which
characterized the ancients’ views on death, those in later centuries were more inclined to attempt
to avoid it. Juan Ponce DeLeon lost his wife in Florida during the Spanish colonization while
search for the mythical “Fountain of Youth” that would grant him immortality. Even in the
1800’s this idea of “cheating” death still held, popular appeal, as demonstrated in Oscar Wide’s
story “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” In the work, a young gentleman finds a way to seal his soul
in a self-portrait, so that it will age in his place. The story the focuses on the slide into utter
depravity caused by Dorian’s agelessness, which is only broken when he looks at the picture of
himself, reversing the curse. Though Gray does indeed “cheat” death, the effects are far from
permanent.
Every today, society demonstrates the influence of the past in our own handling of death.
Though no one today spends decades constructing a pyramid, the passing of a loved one still
celebrated with funerals and mark with gravestones. Though few live in fear of Hades, the idea
of “eternal life” remains a central event of many religions, and, though few try to “cheat” death,
most people attempt to sustain their life as long as possible.
Attitudes about death vary wildly today, as evidenced by the ongoing debate over
“assisted suicide” or the “right to die,” both of which represent politically charged terms for
medical euthanasia, or the end of a terminal patients’ life according to their own wishes.
Supporters see this as granting a dignified, peaceful death to those with no hope of recovery,
while those against the practice claim it devalues human life, and is medically unethical. A
handful of states allow the practice, and several high-profile cases have surfaced questioning the
constitutionality on the ban on it in others states. Despite this, it continues to remain
controversial, among not only the public, but the doctors, patients, and families who it directly
affects.
Death is, and likely always will be, a part of being human. As Atul Gawande writes, “it is
the natural order of things.” Death is, however, the only part of life that it is impossible to
prepare for. Though everyone will experience it at some point, no on living can say for certain
what the experience of dying is try like. However, what is undeniable is that in many cases, death
has been extended from an event to a process, spanning weeks, months and sometimes years. In
the attempt to preserve life as long as possible, it seems evident that society has neglected to
make that life worth living. No one wants to spend their final moments hooked up to machines,
unable to move or speak. As Oscar Wilde showed, death can only be cheated for so long, and to
spend all of one’s time engaged in such a futile effort is at best useless, and at worst a waste of
the time that is left.
Everyone deserves the right to die with dignity, and that doesn’t have to mean physicianassisted suicide. What it means is giving patients the option to accept their deaths. Death with
dignity does not require celebration, fear, avoidance, or intention. It requires an acceptance of
what is to come, and a desire to make the most of the time one has left. Medicine has through
research, study, experiment, and study provided society with the means to better lives. Now it’s
time for medicine to turn the page, and provide the means to better, and more dignified deaths. It
has been said that the life of each person is a story. It’s in the hands of society to provide that
story the opportunity for a beautiful ending.
5A: First Place
Don’t Duck, Just Roll
A fist slices through the air and lands on its intended target, making full impact. Pow. A
second fist follows suit, yet the blunt force is diminished. Thud. In the latter instance, the
recipient of the hit loosens his body and does not resist the punch, thus softening its force.
Boxing is a sport in which hits are inescapable; however, it is the competitors’ choice on how to
respond to them. Acknowledging the upcoming blows and preparing for them, as opposed to
stubbornly insisting that they can be avoided, allows the boxer to roll with the punches and
lessen his pain. Much like boxing matches, life is peppered with challenges or “punches,”
wherein the most prominent one is the issue of death. Largely due to medical advancements and
improved living conditions, human life has increased to an average of seventy-seven years for
men and seventy-nine years for women. Still, it is not enough. Society lauds longevity, glorifying
ideals such as the illustrious Fountain of Youth or vampirism. Despite the appreciation for living
longer, prolonging life does not necessarily equate to peace. Rather, extending the life of a sick
individual or an elderly invalid may lengthen their suffering. Fighting against the ultimate hit in
life-death-often results in misery. As a result, comfort can be found in accepting the inevitably
death and not fighting against it in the final moments of life.
Consider, for instance, the violent life and peaceful death of Gregor Samsa in Franz
Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Gregor, who has unexpectedly transformed into a lumbering, adultsized insect, faces an entirely new lifestyle. Where his family once adored him and depended on
him financially, they now cringe away. He is exiled to his room with the door firmly locked and
the furniture removed. This is a fugitive “punch” in his life, as he is visibly shunned by his loved
ones. As his purpose of being the sole family provider has expired, he has lost their respect. In
fact, as he ventures out of his room, he is greeted with a terrified mother and spiteful father. The
father hurls an apple at Gregor, and the apple lodges itself between scales on his back. It festers
and infects him. This physical hit is one that Gregor can neither avoid nor overlook. He
acknowledges that his usefulness in life, being the family breadwinner, has been fulfilled and he
can do no more. With that recognition of him merely being a burden to family, Gregor
deliberately allows the apple to continue rotting in his flesh. He knows death will come if he
does not fight against the damage from the fruit, but he no longer wishes to prolong life. Living
would be suffering, as he would be unwelcome in his own home and unable to venture into the
outside world. In his case, death is a hit that is well received. Dying and leaving his family less
stress constitutes a success, and that achievement gives Gregor comfort in his final moments.
Aside from a literary construct, the final stages of Vincent Van Gogh’s life also
exemplify the peace that is found by succumbing to death. Van Gogh lived a tumultuous life,
starving for his passion and suffering for his ambitions. He pursued painting recklessly, and
continued to create art even when it brought him no fame or wealth. Unable to pay taxes, he lay
in prison for weeks. Upon returning home, he returned to painting. It was a fervent obsession, an
inescapable need for him to paint. Time and time again, he faced “punches” in the form of
governmental disapproval and a lack of buyers. His craft was largely for himself; still, he was
aged and ill, he finally sold one painting. The only work from his oeuvre that would be sold
during his lifetime was “The Red Vineyard.” Wholly satisfied with finding appreciation for his
masterpiece, minor as the appreciation may have been, he continued with his art. He had no
funds to pay for a doctor, but he had no interest either. The experimental medicine of his era
comprised of various herbs and, most notably, using leeches to bleed out the sickness from
patients. Thus, an attempt to extend his life would have been painful and unnecessary. Van Gogh
was accomplished after selling a painting, and so he was able to die peacefully without
interference.
Along a similar vein is the relatively easy death of the elderly Robert A. Chesebough, the
inventor of Vaseline, Chesebough lived a fairly simple life. His original intent had merely been
to make enough profit to live comfortably without financial concerns. As such, after making a
fortune, he retired to a secluded home with his family. He sought solace from the cheering public
and sold his business. Chesebough aged well, with no notable illnesses. He had minor concerns,
such as memory loss and shortness of breath, but nothing requiring heavy medication. Still, his
fortune would have enabled him to seek out highly lauded doctors to extend his life if he so
wished. Despite the capability to do so, Chesebough had no interest in fighting for more living
time than what he was allotted. The hit of death was merely a phase of life for him, and as he
lived in his secluded family, home he avoided doctors. Away from the public eye and separated
from all people outside of his immediate family, he passed away in peace and comfort.
In short, while it may ostensibly be more beneficial to fight for a longer life, in reality,
death may bring comfort. While some accept it simply to make the final moments of life easier,
others happily embrace it as an end to their suffering. Either way, as they acknowledge the
inevitable nature of death, they free themselves from the pain of striving for a longer life. Thus,
by “rolling” with “punch” of death, they make it easier on themselves and find peace in their
final moments.
6A: First Place
To Dream of Electric Sheep
We live in a time when human life – or, at least, human usefulness – is actively going the
way of the horse and buggy, or the print newspaper, or the slide rule, or the landline telephone,
or any of a million other obsolete and outdated pieces of the past that have been replaced by their
better-functioning, more efficient, and often cheaper counterparts. The idea of humanity as a
whole being replaced by something newer, shinier, and objectively better is nothing new – just
ask summer blockbusters and bestselling novels everywhere, from I, Robot to “Terminator.” But
until very recently, the concept has been somewhat abstract, shrouded in dystopian cynicism and
mid-century sci-fi optimism alike. The robot overlords – or servants, housekeepers, friendly
helpers, but in the end it all amounts to the same thing – of the 20th century were just figments of
the collective imagination, charming dreams or shivery nightmares that were too far off to be
anything more than fiction. But in the 21st century, they’re not just conceivable – they’re already
here.
It starts with the unappealing jobs. Very, very few children have ever actually grown up
wanting to work in the sanitation industry. Of course, the posts of garbage collector and sewer
plant operator get filled anyway, but it’s surely not because the people who fill them wouldn't
prefer something else, some dream job or childhood fantasy at the very least. Given the choice,
almost any rational person would choose almost any other job. And why shouldn't they? Why
not let robots – which can’t get tired, can’t unionize, can’t smell the garbage or human waste or
what-have-you day in and day out and get more and more tired of it – do the dirty work instead?
Industries like agriculture and construction are already doing it; the newest, shiniest tractors and
backhoes make the jobs of their operators quite a bit easier, which is to say quite a bit more
automated, than they used to be. And the human cost of was is on its way out, too – the military
has been on the front end of the automation curve for years. Drone strikes may kill civilians, but
they don't kill drone operators; the different in the death toll for sitting in a booth remotecontrolling a drone is much, much lower versus death toll for climbing in a F-16 and actually
flying into combat airspace is astronomical. Of course, there are still those that do climb into the
F-16 and do the flying, but they’re slowly being replaced. After all, it only makes sense, both
ethically and economically: not only do drones save the lives of pilots, but they save the cost of
having to train them, outfit them, and maintain them, too.
Once the disgusting or dangerous jobs are out of the way, it’s on to the mundane ones.
Jobs that require pushing paper, or pushing buttons, or pushing oneself to stay awake while
staring at same computer screen for eight hours at a time… The robots and programs and
algorithms of today can do most of those, not to mention the robots and programs and algorithms
of five, then or twenty years from now. Secretaries and administrative assistants become
unnecessary if the phone can answer itself and take its own messages and the paperwork can
analyze itself and then file itself by any given criteria. Research assistants become more and
more obsolete the smarter Google gets. Accountants disappear because not only can computers
do math, but they can do it smarter and faster and with fewer errors than their human
counterparts. Certainly most of the world will want real, flesh-and-blood humans supervising
robotic or computerized workers doing many of these activities, at least at first – imagine the
panic if the computer at the doctor’s office misfiles a patient’s paperwork and no one catches it.
But that trial period wont last forever; once the bugs are fixed and the machines don't make
errors and don’t make errors and don’t make errors, even a human supervisor will seem like too
much investment in meat – especially if they’re more likely to mess up than their artificial
charges.
From there, it's a relatively simple leap from jobs to “professions.” After all, most of the
time doctors and lawyers aren’t doing anything more exciting than your average 9-to-5 paper
pusher, and if that part of their jobs can be automated – if we can eliminate the paperwork, and
the prescriptions, and the research, and the endless hours of tracking down case histories and
legal minutiae – then why not the rest? No person, no matter how brilliant, can rival an entire
medical database, and one computer can potentially do the job of a whole team of lawyers. For
that matter, people make the errors in architecture and engineering and design that cost people
their time, their money, and sometimes even their lives. Computers are far, far less likely to mess
up the conversion from meters to feet that will send a multibillion-dollar piece of NASA
technology hurtling into the surface of Mars rather than coming to a gentle landing and then
cruising around sending back important data. If human error can be eliminated – if we can have
smarter doctors, fairer lawyers, more flawless engineers – then surely it should. People will lose
their jobs, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few; if lives can be saved by
replacing people with computers, the weighing of pros to cons seems obvious.
So it goes that human beings are swiftly becoming outdated, and replacing ourselves with
a newer model is something that is surely well-intentioned. If it can make our lives safer,
smoother, easier – give us more time to spend with our loved ones, reduce the threats of war and
famine and disease, eliminate, to some degree, pain and suffering – then of course we should do
it. Of course it’s the right choice. It’s so tempting, and so much like just another repetition of our
past: when we invented the car, we retired the horse. And horses haven’t disappeared, by any
means; certainly their population is far less than what it once was, but if anything, that's good.
They aren’t overgrazing anymore; their numbers are sustainable, but pleasantly low, far from
overpopulation. Perhaps the same could be said for humans. Perhaps the reduced need for fleshy
workers will also reduce the rapidly skyrocketing numbers of people being shoved into
increasingly cramped conditions. Not only that, but if robots run the world, maybe people can’t
destroy it. If protecting the environment is a logical investment in the future, and human greed is
the only thing stopping us from seeing it, then the problem is solved, because for all that they can
do, robots can’t experience greed.
Of course, they can’t experience compassion, either. Or morality. Or fear, sorrow, or joy.
A computer can understand, interpret, and respond to stimuli: if a child is crying, she is upset,
possibly injured, tired, or hungry, and therefore I should attempt to treat her injury, put her to
sleep, or feed her. But it can’t possess empathy: that child is crying, and that makes me feel bad,
so I should figure out what’s wrong and help her. For all of the things that we’ve been able to
teach robots and computers to do – for all of the things that make them superior – there’s one
thing that remains just out of reach: true consciousness. It’s been commonly referred to as
“artificial intelligence,” though that’s something of a misnomer. We can make intelligent
machines, machines that think and learn and make their own decisions. We’ve been able ot do
that for a while now, and we’re only getting better. The trick is making machines that can feel. It
can certainly be done; what is the human brain, after all, but a feeling computer? But whatever
God or nature or pure luck managed, human beings have yet to recreate. Without some degree of
sentience, can we ever really trust them to operate with our best interests at heart? Without some
form of heart or soul, can we trust our entire lives to something so different from us, and yet so
much the same?
Pure logic is no basis for an entire worldview, and certainly not when combined with
power and superior intelligence. Of course, a lack of emotionality can avert disaster; it can also
incite it. If the human mind is about to be replaced by the newest edition – and it is, or, in many
cases, it already has been – then we as a species have a duty to ensure that the human heart is
replaced too. Should we fail to do so, we may see more of the “robot overlord” nightmare and
less of the “friendly helper” dream in our future. The Wizard of Oz was certainly right about at
least this one thing: our tin men need hearts. And we emotional, reckless, illogical human beings
are the only ones who can provide them.