SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY 1

(SCIE 101)

ASYNCHRONOUS MODULE
WHY THE FUTURE DOES NOT NEED US

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Evaluate contemporary human experience to strengthen the human person functioning
in the society.

Introduction

Chief scientist and corporate executive officer of Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy, wrote in 2000
a controversial essay, “Why the future does not need us.” In his work, he contended that our most
powerful 21st-century technologies-genetics, nanotech, and robotics (GNR)—are threatening to
make humans an endangered species. This possible extinction of the species may largely come
about due to the unreflective and unquestioning acceptable of new technologies by humans. Joy
also asserted that:

Accustomed to living with almost routine scientific breakthroughs, we have yet to come to
terms with the fact that the most compelling 21st-century technologies—robotics, genetic
engineering, and nanotechnology—pose a different threat than the technologies that have
come before. Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous
amplifying factor: They can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once—but one bot can
become many, and quickly get out of control.

Each of these technologies also offers untold promise: The vision of near immortality 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 of 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 (Joy, 2000).

Humans should have learned the lesson in the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 that killed over a hundred thousand people. Brilliant physicists,
led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, brought into existence a deadly nuclear weapon. A definite
testament to the success of science and technology, the atomic bomb was also a fatal reminder

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 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY 2
(SCIE 101)

of its destructive power. Now with GNR, we are called to be circumspect and questioning of
technology. Again, as Heidegger (1977) propounded, it is in questioning that we build a way. GNR
today is accessible to small groups and individuals and does not require funding and facilities as
huge as those needed by the nuclear weapons of mass destruction. This makes GNR more prone
to accidents and abuses. It is scary to imagine that such accidents and abuses may self-replicate
and spin out of control, especially when placed in the hands of extremist groups and individuals.

Science and technology may be the highest expression of human rationality. People are
able to shape or destroy the world with it. Theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman
Dyson, in the documentary The Day after Trinity (1981), shared his thoughts and sentiments as
a scientist talking part in the development of nuclear power.

I have felt it myself. The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a
scientist. To feel it’s there in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do
your bidding. To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something
that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our
troubles—this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see
what they can do with their minds.

Human nature may be corrupted when the powers of our mind, our rationality, and our
science and technology become manifest. If we are not able to rein in the vanity and arrogance
that such powers unleash, then we are on the way to destroying the world.

The wasteland grows; woe unto him who harbors the wasteland within. – Friedrich Nietzsche

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