Module 4: GOOD LIFE, HUMANITY CROSS AND THE FUTURE DOES NOT NEED

US

1. Introduction/Overview
This module aims to discuss the philosophical views of good life from different philosophers. It
explains how technology used and developed by humans. It also presents the history of television from the
year it was invented up to the present time. This module consists of three lessons- The Good Life, Humanity
Cross and the Future Does Not Need Us. There are assessment and activities at the end of each lesson.

2. Learning Outcomes
1. Define and enumerate the characteristics of a good life.
2. Define stoicism, humanism and materialism.
3. Explain the relationship of between value and pleasure.
4. Differentiate between good and right.
5. Explain the nature of technology.
6. Discuss the evolution of communication gadgets.

3. Lesson 1: The Good Life

What is “the good life”? This is one of the oldest philosophical questions. Your know-how of human
flourishing and the eudemonistic perception approximately happiness could be collectively utilized in this
lesson to apprehend a person means of an awesome life.

A few philosophers have supported different ideas of a great life and started to express models of mental
and passionate well-being, which endeavored to mostly characterize “good human life.” A society may
recognize great lives and those are characterized by:

1. The fulfilment of basic needs;

2. The satisfaction of desires and aspirations;
3. The accomplishment of a person’s purpose and mission;
and
4. A life that has social meaning.

A few other logicians avoid “securing essential needs” as an essential to a good Life. Great life is more that
acquiring basic commodities. It is additionally more than yearning for a fulfilment of one’s faculties. Even
seeking for joy is ruined since it isn't locked in in a person’s esteemed objective, which is of the establishment
of honest to goodness fulfillments. Having as well numerous too-good-to-be-true wishes in life is an
unintelligent choice, but the fulfilment of fulfilling victory is additionally not simple. In truth, it depends on
the degree of its plausibility of failure.

A fulfilled existence is one that has an intention or an end. But now not all lifestyle dreams bring real
success. A character would possibly feel top notch if his lifestyles is dedicated to an inspiring personal and
social motive.
 There is another distinct which means of “appropriate lifestyles” wherein the achievement encompasses
other’ health sometime, ever notes that oneself. These people measure their fulfilment thru their effect on their
effect on their society, and the meaning of their lives is essentially shared, And, there are also folks who equate
their correct existence with making sacrifices. They are those who classify themselves as contraptions for
others and for posterity. Perhaps, appropriate lifestyles aren’t always essentially approximately a character’s
quest of non-public success but in all likelihood approximately his commitments to selflessness and having an
“moral existence.”

ARISTOTLE AND THE GOOD LIFE

It is regularly pointed out – to the point of being a cliché – that one of the challenges of living within the
present-day world is the disintegrating of conventional certainties and following disarray around what values
to hold and what points to seek after.

Aristotle talks around the extreme great being eudaimonia – which means attaining a great life, a
thriving life, a satisfied and beneficial life. As he himself recognizes, be that as it may, essentially naming it
does not tell us much around what sorts of fixings are required for such a life, so he begins by considering
different prevalent contenders – cash, victory, delight, connections.

Money and success

Money is clearly as it were a implies to a conclusion; in this manner, it can’t be the greatest. On the other
hand, Aristotle does not advocate a life of renunciation – a direct amount of fabric comforts is vital for our
well-being. And a genuinely favored life would be anticipated by extraordinary hardship. Nevertheless,
quality of life is really determined not by the circumstances of the person but what he makes out of them.

Victory cannot moreover be considered the most elevated greatness since it is as well subordinate on a
few other people’s sees. Honor isn't associated to any characteristics of the individual himself but how other
individuals see him. Too, the degree of the person’s victory depends on the sort and bunch of the individuals
who recognize the individual. Finally, the impulse of fortune has also an extraordinary impact on a person’s
victory. It may not really speak to the complete worth of that individual.

Pleasure
Pleasure is certainly not the greatest, and individuals who are primarily intrigue lies in substantial joys that are
depicted as living ‘lives that are fit as it were for cattle’. But Aristotle closes up guarding joy in two ways:

(a) indeed, simply substantial delights are great in control – we are encapsulated animals, and as well small
appreciation of substantial joys can really ruin our interest of a great life.

(b) there are different kinds of pleasures, and the best kind is that deriving from being involved in some
worthwhile activity.
Being pleasurable with the values in life is superior that appreciating joys. Take note the heading of the causal
arrow within the figure. An Aristotle rule requires adjust between esteem and joy to achieve great life.

Relationships

Aristotle says that we shall have difficulty in driven to describing a person who is absolutely solitary and still
having a great life, and that no person would select to stay without friends, although they had all of the other
goods. He recognized three types of relationships:
1. The pleasant and the ones based on mutual admiration.
2. The person is loved only insofar as s/he provides some good
or pleasure;
3. The most solid and therefore most important.
But we might include that the capacity to be alone is additionally imperative, which a few people may select
isolation for the purpose of other interests, such as consideration.

Reason and Virtues

The greatest for a human being is reason, since it is the characteristic human capacity, the one we don’t
share with other creatures. There are diverse readings of this, but a conceivable one is that in show disdain
toward of the truth that none of our capacities got to be rejected, the especially human ones need to be given
an exceptional put. So, a great life got to certainly contain some fulfillments related with our natural nature,
but our higher assets got to be given more significance.

What roughly our capacity to feel significant sentiments, to cherish, to be moved by craftsmanship, music,
nature? We appear say – in an Aristotelian soul, I accept – that it’s the whole bundle (resources, sentiments,
reason) that characterized us as human animals, and got in this way be regarded and created. But reason need
to still keep hold of the reins.

3.1. THE PHILOSOPHIES BETWEEN THE GOOD AND RIGHT

Right’ and ‘good’ are the two essential terms of ethical assessment. In common, something is ‘right’ in case it is
ethically compulsory, though it is ethically ‘good’ on the off chance that it is worth having or doing and
improves the life of those who have it.

But living in a world encompassed by pleasurable belonging, most individuals of the present-day times
would or maybe select anything that's great for them. It appears simple to get a handle on for the present-day
individuals that having a great life is basically identical to getting what an individual need and needing what
an individual has.

The restricted time of life here on soil can moreover be a pardon of a person to maintain a strategic
distance from sitting around idly unwinding the thoughts from the old Greeks with respect to eudaimonia. In
truth, how can a great life be considered “good” in case it is boundless and inaccessible. This concept almost
great life is backed by the school of contemplations of Hedonism, Stoicism, Humanism, and Materialism.
 HEDONISM

The term "hedonism" is derived from the Greek "hedone" meaning simply "pleasure" the foremost critical
interest of mankind, and the only thing that is good for an individual. It is a school of thought spearheaded by
Epicurus. Pleasure seekers, hence, endeavor to maximize them add up to delight (the net of any delight less
any torment or enduring), and believed believe that pleasure is the only good in life, and pain is the only evil,
and our life's goal should be to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

STOICISM

Stoicism is a school of logic that hails from old Greece and Rome within the early parts of the 3rd century, BC
and established in Athens by Zeno of Citium (advanced day Cyprus). The reasoning was outlined to assist
individuals live their best conceivable lives. It’s a logic of life that maximizes positive feelings, diminishes
negative feelings and makes a difference people to sharpen their excellences of character.

Stoicism was intentionally made to be justifiable, noteworthy and valuable. Practicing Stoicism doesn’t
require learning a completely unused philosophical vocabulary or thinking for hours a day. Instead, it offers a
quick, valuable and viable way to discover tranquility and make strides one’s qualities of character.

HUMANISM

Humanism could be a Renaissance development in logic towards a more human-centered (and less religion-
centered) approach. Humanism is more a common life position or state of mind that maintains human reason,
morals and equity.
Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) commonly anglicised as Petrarch, father of Humanism. In his work Secretum
meum he focuses out that mainstream accomplishments did not fundamentally block a true relationship with
God. Petrarch contended instep that God had given people their endless mental and inventive potential to be
utilized to their fullest. He motivated Humanist reasoning, which driven to the mental blossoming of the
Renaissance. He accepted within the colossal ethical and viable esteem of the consider of old history and
literature—that is, the think about of human thought and activity. Petrarch was an ardent Catholic and did not
see a struggle between realizing humanity’s potential and having devout confidence.

MATERIALISM
Materialism holds that the as it were thing that can be really demonstrated to exist is matter. In this way,
concurring to Realism, all things are composed of fabric and all wonders are the result of fabric intelligent,
with no bookkeeping of soul or awareness.

Ancient Greek rationalists like Thales, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and after, that afterward,
Epicurus and Lucretius (99 - 55 B.C.) all prefigure afterward realists, and contributed towards the classic
detailing of Realism. Lucretius composed "De Rerum Natura" ("The Nature of Things"), the primary magnum
opus of realist writing, around 50 B.C.

4. Lesson 2 – When Technology and Humanity Cross

INTRODUCTION
It appears that the typical world of presence for human being is the world of technology. We alter the
environment through innovation in such a way that it serves our needs and we create artefacts to compensate
shortcomings of our body. In arrange to get it ourselves we got to get it way better the connection between
human and innovation, and particularly innovative artefacts. There are different points of view from which
one can approach the issue, and one of the foremost vital ones is how innovation impacts our ethical life.

According to Leonhard, the moment has come to face a debate that may now not be postponed, and also the
debate must have a transparent place to begin, with human welfare and happiness at the middle of each
decision-making and governance process. Thus, we are able to not waver between celebrating the industrial
revolution and mourning a lost world.

Leonhard gives voice to a series of doubts and questions that, in his opinion, should are addressed way back
because the technology develops at an exponential rate and redefines the way we work, live and even think.
Leonhard raises the points of Megashifts between man and technology we'll need to face, and providing food
for thought on the long-standing debate on jobs in danger. But he warns us: there's an entire new set of critical
issues, because technology is not any longer just redrawing our economy.

Presently is the time - and, as Leonhard never tires to remind us, “the last chance” - to connect the specks
between huge information and advanced morals, to begin talking about the ethical system required to control
the advancement of digital life, to bridge the hole between what innovation can do and what it ought to do to
attain human bliss, and to reflect once more on what makes human creatures one of a kind. In brief, to rethink
the part of humankind within the post-human world.

4.1. NATURE OF TECHNOLOGY

The world technology comes from two Greek words techne and logos. Techne means art and craft
and logos means word or utterance being expressed by a person. In the largest sense, innovation expands our
capacities to alter the world: to cut, shape, or put together materials; to move things from one put to another;
to reach more distant with our hands, voices, and senses. We utilize innovation to undertake to alter the world
to suit us way better. The changes may relate to survival needs such as nourishment, shield, or defense, or they
may relate to human goals such as information, craftsmanship, or control. But the comes about of changing the
world are regularly complicated and eccentric. They can incorporate unforeseen benefits, unforeseen costs,
and unforeseen risks—any of which may drop on distinctive social bunches at distinctive times. Expecting the
impacts of innovation is subsequently as imperative as progressing its capabilities.
Information, or strategy, is required not as it were for the generation of artifacts, but too for their utilize.
Information is required both at the level of the person, in complex organizations, and at the level of society.
The Austrian economist Joseph A. Schumpeter distinguished three important phases in technology
development: invention, innovation, and diffusion.

Invention - is the primary exhibit of the foremost, physical achievability of a proposed unused arrangement
that regularly offers no insights around conceivable applications in spite of the mechanical sentimentalism
encompassing the inventor’s human inventiveness.

Innovation - is characterized briefly by Mensch (1979:123) as the point when a “newly found fabric or a recently
created strategy is being put into normal generation for the primary time, or when an organized showcase for
the modern item is to begin with created”. A qualification is as often as possible made between process and
item developments.

Diffusion - is the far-reaching replication of an innovation and its digestion in a financial setting. Diffusion is
the ultimate, and now and then painful, test of whether an advancement can make a specialty of it possess or
successfully supplant existing hones and artifacts. Innovation accept significance only through its application
(development) and ensuing far reaching replication (diffusion).
In short, nothing could be more misleading than a simple linear model of knowledge and technology
generation. To be successful, innovations must be continuously experimented with, and continuously
modified and improved.

SIMPLE MACHINES
The word machine has origins in both the Greek and Roman languages. The Greek word ‘machos’ means
‘expedient’ or something that ‘makes work easy’. The Romans have an identical understanding of the word
‘machina’ which suggests ‘trick’ or ‘device’. the fundamental purpose that most straightforward machines are
designed is to scale back the hassle (force) required to perform a straightforward task
In spite of the fact that other machines are basic in plan, they were required some time recently people may
reason into higher levels of innovation. The term ‘simple machine’ is commonly utilized by researchers to
allude to one of six different devices which are frequently combined to create more complex machines. These
are the simple machine

Wheel and axle.

Combines a wheel with a central fixed axle which ensures that both must rotate together. A small force applied
at the edge of the wheel is converted by rotation to a more powerful force at the smaller axle.

Lever.
Comprises of a solid pillar that turns around a settled turn point (support) found some place along the pillar.
Movement at one conclusion of the pillar comes about in movement at the other conclusion within the inverse
course.

The wedge.
Is used to convert a force applied in the direction of the wedge’s movement to a splitting action that acts at
right angles to the blade. It is often used to split, cut or raise heavy objects depending on the angle of the sides
of the wedge.

The screw.
The rotation of a threaded shaft can be converted into movement in either direction along the axis of rotation
depending on the direction of its spiral thread. A screw acts like an ‘incline plane’ that has been wound around
a shaft. They are commonly used with gears or as a fastening mechanism.

Inclined plane (ramp or staircase).

Is commonly used to raise or lower heavy objects. The large movement of the object along the ramp is
converted by the angle of the ramp’s elevation into a smaller vertical movement. Given the friction on the
ramp is small, a reduced force is needed to raise a heavy object vertically although it must be moved a greater
distance along the ramp to achieve this advantage.

Pulley.
The use of a single fixed pulley and attached cord allows for a change in the direction of the force applied to an
object. Although a single overhead pulley provides no mechanical advantage it may be helpful, for example, in
allowing a lifting force to be better achieved by redirecting the force down towards the ground to raise an
object.

COMPOUND MACHINES
Most of the more complex gadgets that we see or utilize each day are combinations of basic machines. A
machine that's made of two or more simple machines is called a compound machine. In an awfully complex
compound machine, such as a car, the simple machines may not be self-evident at to begin with. In any case, in
the event that you see carefully at a compound machine, you ought to be able to distinguish shapes of levers,
pulleys, and wheels and axles.

Evolution of Television

The television counts among a handful of designs that most dramatically changed 20th-century
society. According from CNN in a 2016 survey conducted by media intelligence firm Kantar Media, 96.6
percent of Filipinos watch TV daily from 91.2 percent in 2014. Filipinos also spent longer time in front of their
TV sets, devoting 3.7 hours to watching their favorite programs last year.

Television has become one of the most common ways people view the larger world beyond them, as well as
being one of the best ways for people to escape from the world. Thus, here are some interesting facts about the
evolution of television.
1884 – The first electromechanical television was proposed and patented by Paul Julius Gottlieb Nipkow.
1888 – Liquid Crystals were accidentally discovered by Friedrich Reinitzer.

1897 – The first Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) was built by Karl Ferdinand Braun.

1925 – John Logie Baird was the inventor who built the world’s first working television system.

1928 – The world’s first successful color transmission by John Logie Baird. The color transmission was made
using an electromechanical television system.

1928 – The first working electronic television (all-electronic) was built by Philo Taylor Farnsworth.

1936 – The world’s first analog high-definition TV (HDTV or HD) regular service was started in Britain in 1936.

1964 – The first working liquid crystal display (LCD) was built by George H. Heilmeier. The original LCD
displays were based on what is called dynamic scattering mode (DSM).

1964 – The first flat plasma display panel (PDP) was invented by Donald Bitzer, Gene Slottow and Robert
Willson.

1972 – The first active-matrix liquid crystal display (LCD) panel was produced by Westinghouse.

1977 – The first true all LED flat panel television TV screen was developed by J. P. Mitchell.

1982 – Seiko introduces the world’s first LCD TV watch.

1982 – The first mass-produced pocket television was the Sony Watchman FD-210. The Sony Watchman was
also the first flat CRT television in production.

1988 – The Sharp Corporation develops the world’s first 14-inch color TFT LCD TV. The LCD TV model was
called the Crystaltron.

1995 – The world’s largest LED display, the Fremont Street Experience, in Las Vegas is over 1,500 ft. long and
90 ft. high at the peak.

1996 – The first public digital high-definition television (HDTV or HD) broadcast in the United States.

2008 – The world’s largest Plasma TV is a 150-inch Plasma TV made by Panasonic, standing 6 ft high and 11 ft
wide.

2009 – The world’s largest LED high-definition video display screen in the world is the Mitsubishi Diamond
Vision display at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. The LED HD display measures 160 ft wide and 72 ft high and
is nicknamed the “JerryTron” after Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

2010 – The world’s largest Plasma 3D TV is a 152 inch Plasma TV made by Panasonic
2010 – The world’s first 3D LED HDTV released by Samsung (Samsung 3D LED 7000). Announced in
February, 2010. LG announced the release of their first 3D LED HDTV, the LG LX9500 in March, 2010.

Apart from the development of the television that gives a lot benefit, in other aspects particularly prolonged
viewing, can hurt your health and reduce your quality of life. Also, this changes the people’s way of thinking
because some shows a lot of violence which is linked to the person’s personality and attitude.

4.2. Evolution of Communication Gadgets

It’s hard to believe that the initial concept for this form of communication technology began more than 400
years ago. And, just 150 years ago, in 1867, Alexander Graham Bell spoke the first official words into a
telephone to Thomas A. Watson. This invention has since gone on to transform communications worldwide.
With the demands to remain connected at an all-time high, businesses especially are adopting more advanced
technology than your typical office phone, incorporating much more than just voice communications.
Complete unified communications solutions that are maintained in the cloud, encompassing video
conferencing platforms, mobile tools and online faxing, are proving to be the most efficient and cost-effective
way for businesses today to centralize communications internally and with customers.
With more than a decade of cloud phone experience, Broadview prides itself on being pioneers in this fast-
growing and ever-evolving market of new age business communications. We look forward to continuing to be
on the forefront of the most indispensable technology in history.
We’ve put together a fun timeline to show the evolution of the telephone so you can see for yourself just how
far this amazing technology has come.
Evolution of automobile

Unlike many other major inventions, the original idea of the automobile cannot be attributed to a single
individual. From necessity to hobby, the car plays a huge role in our everyday lives. Take a look at the picture
on how the car has grown from idea to automated.

After decades of auto technology that had evolved only marginally since the mid-20th century, experts say
we’re now seeing a super-fast shift that's comparable to the industry's early days. “In the last 30 to 40 years the
way cars were manufactured didn’t change much,” says Ozgur Tohumcu, CEO of the car-tech company
Tantalum. “But now things are fundamentally changing — and very quickly.”

Technological ethical dilemmas

An ethical dilemma (ethical paradox or moral dilemma) may be a problem within the decision-making process
between two possible options, neither of which is totally acceptable from an ethical perspective. Although we
face many ethical and moral problems in our life, most of them include relatively straightforward solutions.
According to the Center of Ethics and Health, the definition is as follows: “Ethics is consciously thinking about
taking the right actions”. One of the primary roles played by ethics, in relation to technology, is to make sure
that technology doesn’t enter our lives in undesirable ways.

Three ethical decision criteria

The one who applies utilitarianism, assesses the impact of specific actions on people who are directly involved
in this process, while trying to produce the greatest benefits for the greatest number of people. Those who
adhere to the rights criterion, assess whether the decisions and actions of the basic civil and group rights and
privileges are appropriate. The three criteria of ethical decisions include:
Rights criteria: This criterion deals with privileges and basic rights. It focuses on making such decisions that
protect the rights and privileges of an individual, such as the right to free speech, privacy, information, and
others.
Utilitarian criteria: These criteria deal with end results or consequences. It focuses on fulfilling high profit,
efficiency, and high productivity goals while making decisions.
Justice criteria: This criterion deal with fair rules and values. While making important business decisions, this
ethical criterion must be kept in mind so as to ensure the impartiality and equal distribution of costs and
benefits.

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are digital technologies that will have critical effect on the advancement
of humankind within the close future which frequently centered on “concerns” of various sorts. In specific, we
don't wish to limit “intelligence” to what would require insights on the off chance that done by people. But the
main social and ethical issues raised by the ever-faster application of robots to our daily life, and especially to
sensitive human areas.
In his 1942 collection of science fiction stories, I, Robot, Isaac Asimov introduced the Three Laws of Robotics,
also known as Asimov’s laws:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given by a human being unless it conflicts with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection won’t conflict with the First or Second Law.
Outlined in the Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D, these laws were intended as a safety feature to
ensure that robots were designed not to harm humans in any way. However, AI and robotics are going to
shape our future. Listed below are 10 issues that professionals and researchers need to address in order to
design intelligent systems that help humanity.

Misinformation and Fake News.

Job Displacement
Privacy
Cybersecurity
Mistakes of AI
Military Robots
Algorithmic Bias
Regulation
Superintelligence
Robot Rights

AI and robotics have raised essential questions around what we ought to do with these frameworks, what the
frameworks themselves ought to do, and what dangers they have within the long term. They moreover
challenge the human see of humankind as the shrewdly and overwhelming species on Soil. We have seen
issues that have been raised and will need to observe innovative and social advancements closely to capture
the unused issues early on, create a philosophical investigation, and learn for conventional issues of reasoning.

Lesson 3 – Why the Future Does Not Need Us

The arrival of the present millennium filled many with a sense of hope for the future. This hope is
underwritten by a continuing faith in the technological and scientific progress that has produced so many
things that we have come to take for granted, among them the Internet.
When the stunning article by Bill Joy (is an American computer scientist who co-founded Sun
Microsystems) in April 2000 “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”, made the cover of Wired Magazine, it created
quite a rumble in high-tech circles. Its argument was that “our most powerful 21st century technologies are
threatening to make humans an endangered species.” These are:

Robotics - an interdisciplinary research area at the interface of computer science and engineering. Robotics
involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots.

Genetic engineering - Genetic engineering, also called recombinant DNA technology, involves the group of
techniques used to cut up and join together genetic material, especially DNA from different biological species,
and to introduce the resulting hybrid DNA into an organism in order to form new combinations of heritable
genetic material.

Nanotech - The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal
of precisely manipulating atoms and molecules for fabrication of macroscale products, also now referred to as
molecular nanotechnology.
Bill Joy argues that human beings face the realistic possibility of extinction because of competition from
intelligent robots, which are made possible by technological advancements in artificial intelligence. He locates
these dangers in the potential (or actual) ability of robots, engineered organisms and nanobots to self-
replicate.

If these technologies go out of control, this amplifying factor can lead to substantial damage in the physical
world, not unlike the potential of computer viruses to do harm. Worse, unlike conventional “weapons of mass
destruction,” 21st-century technologies are much more readily available to individuals or small groups, and
having knowledge alone is sufficient to enable their deployment.

5.1. Scientist Critics

Bill Joy traces his worries to a discussion he had with Ray Kurzweil at a conference in 1998. He had read an
early draft of Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence and found it
deeply disturbing. Subsequently, he encountered arguments by the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Kaczynski
argued that if machines do all of society’s work, as they inevitably will, then we can:

a) let the machines make all the decisions; or

b) maintain human control over the machines.

If we choose “a” then we are at the mercy of our machines. It is not that we would give them control or that
they would take control, rather, we might become so dependent on them that we would have to accept their
commands. Needless to say, Joy doesn’t like this scenario. If we choose “b” then control would be in the hands
of an elite, and the masses would be unnecessary. In that case, the tiny elite:

1) would exterminate the masses

2) reduce their birthrate so they slowly became extinct; or
3) become benevolent shepherds to the masses.

The first two scenarios entail our extinction, but even the third option is bad. In this last scenario, the elite
would fulfill all physical and psychological needs of the masses, while at the same time engineering the masses
to sublimate their desire for power. In this case, the masses might be happy, but they wouldn’t be free.

Bill Joy finds these arguments both convincing and troubling. About this time Joy read Hans
Moravec’s book Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind where he found predictions similar to Kurzweil’s. Joy
was especially concerned by Moravec’s claim that technological superiors always defeat technological
inferiors, as well as his claim that humans will become extinct as they merge with the robots. Disturbed, Joy
consulted other computer scientists who, for the most part, agreed with these predictions.

In addition, Joy’s vision of the future presupposes that robots and humans will remain separate creatures, a
view explicitly rejected by robotics expert Rodney Brooks and others. If Brooks is correct, humans will gradually
incorporate technology into their own bodies thus eliminating the situation that Joy envisions.

Bill Joy’s dilemma and argument

His worries focus on the transforming technologies of the 21st century—genetics, nanotechnology, and
robotics (GNR). Joy claims 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. Summarize below are some opponents’ arguments from his article.
Joy’s big fish eat little fish argument quotes robotics pioneer Hans Moravec: “Biological species almost never survive
encounters with superior competitors.”
He suggests we will be driven to extinction by our superior robotic descendants.

In his vision of the future presupposes that robots and humans will remain separate creatures, a view
explicitly rejected by robotics expert Rodney Brooks and others.
Thus, we don’t know that robots will be the bigger fish, that they will eat us even if they are, or that there will
even be distinct fishes.

Bill Joy’s mad scientist argument describes a molecular biologist who “constructs and disseminates a new and
highly contagious plague that kills widely but selectively.”
self-replication amplifies the danger of GNR: “A bomb is blown up only once—but one bot can become many, and
quickly get out of control.” First of all, bombs replicate, they just don’t replicate by themselves. Joy’s concern must
not be with replication, but with self-replication.
Joy’s lack of control argument focuses on the self-replicating nature of GNR.
self-replication amplifies the danger of GNR: “A bomb is blown up only once—but one bot can become many,
and quickly get out of control.”

Robotic self-replication appears to be out of our control, as compared to our own or other humans’ self-
replication.
Joy fears that robots might replicate and then enslave us
Joy stand corrected in “uncontrolled self-replication in these newer technologies runs … a risk of substantial
damage in the physical world,” so too does the “uncontrolled self-replication” of humans, their biological
tendencies, their hatreds, and their ideologies.

Bill Joy’s easy access argument claims that 20th-century technologies

nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC)—required access to rare “raw materials and highly protected
information,” while 21st-century technologies “are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups.”
This means that “knowledge alone will enable the use of them,” a phenomenon that Joy terms: “knowledge-
enabled mass destruction (KMD).”

Bill Joy’s technologies make things worse argument.

As for genetic engineering, I know of no reason—short of childish pleas not to play God—to impede our
increasing abilities to perfect our bodies, eliminate disease, and prevent deformity.

As for nanotechnology, Joy eloquently writes of how “engines of creation” may transform into “engines of
destruction.

Bill Joy gives us no reason whatsoever to share his fear about the fact that NBC technologies have largely
military uses and were developed by governments, while GNR have commercial uses and are being developed
by corporations.
Joy’s it’s never been this bad argument:
“this is the first moment in the history of our planet when any species by its voluntary actions has become a
danger to itself.” Thus, humans are a greater threat to themselves now than ever before.

A basic difficulty with Joy’s article is this: he mistakenly accepts the notion that technology rules people rather
than the reverse. But if we can control our technology, there is another solution to our dilemmas. We can use our
technology to change ourselves; to make ourselves more ethical, cautious, insightful, and intelligent.

Aftermath
After the publication of the article, Bill Joy suggested assessing technologies to gauge their implicit dangers,
as well as having scientists refuse to work on technologies that have the potential to cause harm.

In the 15th Anniversary issue of Wired in 2008, Lucas Graves's article reported that the genetics,
nanotechnology, and robotics technologies have not reached the level that would make Bill Joy's scenario come
true.