Why does the future

does not need us?

 "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us"
is an article written by Bill Joy in the
April 2000 issue of Wired magazine.
 He is the Chief Scientist at 
Sun Microsystems
 In the article, he argues that "Our most
powerful 21st-century technologies—
robotics, genetic engineering, and 
nanotech—are threatening to make
humans an endangered species."
A brief history of robotics
 A robot is a machine—especially one
programmable by a computer—
capable of carrying out a complex
series of actions automatically.
Robots can be guided by an external
control device or the control may be
embedded within. 
 1942 - Isaac Azimov sets out
his Three Laws for Robotics
 A robot may not injure a human being or,
through inaction, allow a human being to
come to harm.
 A robot must obey any orders given to it
by human beings, except where such
orders would conflict with the First Law.
 A robot must protect its own existence as
long as such protection does not conflict
with the First or Second Law.
1943 - Neural networks
are introduced

Artificial neural networks

(based on the neural networks
in the human brain) are
computing systems designed to
simulate the way the human
brain processes information.
 1948 - William Grey
Walter's 'turtle' robots
 William Grey Walter developed what are
considered the first electronic autonomous
robots called machina speculatrix.
1954 - George Devol files
for Unimate patent

 Norman Heroux, George

Devol and Joe Engleberger
designed and marketed the
first programmable robot
arm - called Unimate
 1966 - The first incarnation of
Siri - ELIZA - was developed
 ELIZA was one of the first of these
natural language processing
programmes , created by a professor at
the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
between the years 1964 and 1966.
 The programme could carry out a
conversation via text by following a
'script' that directed it on how to
respond.
 1969 - NASA lands on
the moon
 NASA used cutting edge
computing and robotics
technology to land humans
on the moon for the first time
in 1969.
1986 - First self-driving
car goes for a test drive

 Self-driving cars are still

not mainstream today, so
it might be surprising to
learn that the fist
autonomous car took
itself for a drive in 1986.
 1996 - Deep Blue defeats
Garry Kasparov at chess

 In May 1997 IBM's robot

Deep Blue beat the world
chess champion Garry
Kasparov in a match. It had
beaten Kasparov in a single
game in 1996.
 2000 - Honda
releases ASIMO
 Honda releases ASIMO
(Advanced Step in Innovative
Mobility), its iconic humanoid
robot designed to be a
personal assistant that can
understand voice commands,
gestures and engage with its
surroundings.
2016 - AlphaGo defeats
Lee Sedol at Go

 On March 15 2016 AlphaGo
, an AI system built by UK
company DeepMind,
defeated the world
champion Lee Sedol at the
ancient board game Go.
2017 - AlphaGo Zero
learns Go in three days
with no help

 A newer version of AlphaGo,

AlphaGo Zero, learned to play
Go by itself in just three days
after only being told the rules.

 This is exciting because it

indicates that AI can create
knowledge on its own with
very little human direction.
Concern for for humanity

 Billy Joy, the author of the article “Why does

the future Doesn’t need us”, brings no joy to
readers when discussing how the
advancement of technology will affect the
human race. His views on the progression of
technology in the world embody a speptical
outlook on peaceful relations with machines
if/when robots become “intelligent”.
 SUmmary

 Joy argues that developing technologies provide a much greater danger to humanity
than any technology before has ever presented. In particular, he focuses on
engineering, nanotechnology and robotics. He argues that 20th-century
technologies of destruction such as the nuclear bomb were limited to large
governments, due to the complexity and cost of such devices, as well as the
difficulty in acquiring the required materials. He uses the novel The White Plague as
a potential nightmare scenario, in which a mad scientist creates a virus capable of
wiping out humanity.
 Joy also voices concern about increasing computer power. His worry is that
computers will eventually become more intelligent than we are, leading to such
dystopian scenarios as robot rebellion. He notably quotes Ted Kaczynski (the
Unabomber) on this topic.
 Bill Joy is concerned that eventually those humans with millions of dollars will
be the only ones that have the power to control the future Robots they are
trying to build for the future 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, outside of his on thoughts he tried getting others opinions on the
topic. Rodney Brooks specializes in robotics and he believes that in the future it
will be a merge between the humans and robots one won’t be controlled by the
other you be able to see a difference between the two.Joy mentioned
Hans Moravec's book ''Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind'' where he
believed there will be a shift in the future where robots will take over normal
human activities but with time humans will become okay with living that way
but robots will become smarter and then some humans will choose to become
a crossbreed between human and robot so they'll live longer
Setting the Scene

 To discuss the possible outcomes of intelligent life,

one must have a context that helps explain the
outcomes. A passage quoted in the article sets up
two scenarios, assuming all human work is now done
by highly organized systems made of intelligent
machines:
 1) Machines are permitted to make all their own
decisions.
 2) Human control over the machines will be retained.
 The Possible Outcomes

In respect to the first scenario, the possible outcome described by Kaczynski is as follows:
 Intelligent robots do all the work and make their own decisions
 Though we are not making the assumption that the machines would willfully seize
power, it is evident that the fate of the human race would be in their hands because
they are doing all the labor
 Because it is impossible to guess the behavior of a machine, the possibility that they
seize power is very real
 If machines do decide to act in a threatening way towards the human race, there will be
no defense against the attack thus making certain the doom of the human race
 In the second scenario, Kaczynski's description of the
outcome is as follows:
 The human race retains power over the machines
 The few who are considered the elite take control over
the large systems of machines while the average man
has his private machines like cars
 Because the machines are doing all the work, humans
will become a useless burden on the system thus leaving
the elite with a few choices on what to do with humanity
 1) If the elite are ruthless, which many of them are,
they can choose to exterminate humanity with the
intelligent robots.
 2)If the elite are humane they can lower
reproduction rate until the mass of humanity goes
extinct
 3) If the elite are soft-hearted liberals they can take
care of the masses, but only in order to domesticate
them.
Discussing the outcome

 In each of the scenarios presented by

Kaczynski, it seems to end badly for the
human race
 There is a possibility that machines
could turn bad and seize power or that
the elite use the power of the machines
to exterminate the human race
Final thoughts

 The concerns brought to light by Joy revolve around the single

assumption that we will develop intelligent robots capable of
making decisions that only humans could previously make.
There is always a chance that it proves to be impossible for
machines to reach that level, but then again human curiosity
is a thing of wonder that has lead many to pursue their
intellectual aspirations to the depths of the universe. It is a
matter of time until someone figures out how to develop an
intelligent robot that can make complicated decisions, and we
won't even view it as a possible threat due to the way
technology is integrated into the human race.
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