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A New Look at Human Extinction March 6, 2000 The very powerful technologies of the new Millennium - from robotics, genetic engineering and nanotechnologies - "are threatening to make humans an endangered species," according to the April 2000 issue of Wired Magazine ("Why the Future Doesn't Need Us") in an article by Billy Joy, co-founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, Inc. As man's dependence on technology continues to substantially increase, so does his progress in developing intelligent machines that can and will do all things better than humans can do themselves. In a way, it is the technological version of Charles Darwin's "survival of the fitted." If technological evolution reaches the point where sophisticated systems of machines can function on a cognitive level, and make decisions and perform tasks without the need for any human intervention whatsoever, then, as Mr. Joy points out, the human race would be at the mercy of machines.
Yet, the 21st century will provide such compelling technologies as genetic engineering and nanotechnologies (work at the atomic, as opposed to the molecular level) that have the potential to threaten any human involvement whatsoever -- far more than the simpler technologies of yore. According to Joy, "Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots (robots on the atomic level) 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." And the risk of this would be substantial damage to the physical world, the environment on which humans and all of Earth's other organic co-inhabitants depend.
Simply getting rid of machines would be suicide, Joy points out. So perhaps an equally viable option is that human progress be tempered with the care of ensuring that human involvement remain essential to that progress, thereby ensuring that human needs are maintained and the quality of life improved. While it's true that machines and other products of our technologies have no consciousness, it does not mean that they will not some day have the cognitive qualities to perform tasks as humans do. Today, that is called science fiction. But as we have learned from our science fiction literature of the past, such things are based on real possibilities, many of which we have already witnessed in our lifetime, such as space travel, visiting other planets, the creation of the atomic bomb, nuclear power and machines that will talk to you.
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So, why doesn't the future need us. Mr. Joy covers this possibility in extraordinary thought which considers a simple theme: In our efforts to improve the quality of our lives, we -- humans -- strive to make things that can do things better than we can ourselves. In so doing, we create things that replace what humans once did exclusively. Just consider such simple creations as the calculator, remote control devices, personal computers and microwave ovens.
The promises of these new technologies are equally powerful: virtual immortality, providing treatments and cures for almost every disease, and solutions and advances that could expand the human life span indefinitely and improve the quality of our lives -- particularly the environment. All the while, Joy says, "with each of these technologies, a sequence of small, individually sensible advances leads to an accumulation of great power, and, concomitantly [coupled with], great danger."
Perhaps English author H.G. Wells, considered by many to be the father of modern science fiction, could foresee human such decline "at a time when civilization passes it zenith," when he authored his first literary work,
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