Bill Joy certainly has reputation capital to burn, but it is in the domain
of computer science (as he himself says) and not philosophical inquiry.
This article contains opinions and book reviews, not deep thinking into the
issues it merely suggests. It if *were* deep thinking, Wired would never
publish it.
The article is a swiftly moving river of name-dropping and a list of "books
I have read." The books are invoked in serial fashion from popular Silicon
Valley culture, but the critical implications and ideas are not integrated
into a synthesis, that is, these ideas are not digested and integrated into
a comprehensive insightful exploration. Yes, Bill Guy has done some great
work, but his critical thinking could use an assist from other disciplines
like the humanities with which he is not very familiar. One added quote
from Nietzsche does not count.
Why? Because an inquiry into what it means to be human requires an
understanding of culture and how symbols define our identities and very
selves, and a historical perspective that shows awareness of how identities
have shifted in the past, how values and cultures function in the human
equation, and how the older word for psyche - "soul" - can still play a
part in illuminating the possibilities for being human. I do not mean that
in any simplistic sense but as a distinction or domain that refers to a
distinctly human field of subjectivity. Joy may have had a drink with John
Searle (in one of the earlier meeting-dropping party-dropping name-dropping
indulgences) but he does not seem to have understood his analysis of
artificial intelligence.
So I disagree with your assessment of this article. It is very shallow and
continues the New Wired tradition of righteous Silicon Valley name-dropping
a la People magazine as a substitute for deep thinking and clear exposition.
Richard Thieme
At 11:20 AM 03/15/2000 -0500, Trei, Peter wrote:
>I'd like to suggest that people take a serious look at Bill Joy's
>"Why the future doesn't need us", the cover article
>in the current Wired magazine. It can be found online at
>http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html.
>
>Bill (one of the Great Old Men of the Internet, with vi, BSD,
>Java, and Jini to his credit) it not a nut. He has reputation
>capital to burn. He's talking about the possible imminent end
>of the human species.
>
>Briefly, he argues that current advances in biotech,
>computers and robotics are creating such powerful
>instrumentalities that either we'll make machines smarter
>than ourselves, which will take over, or some nut will unleash
>a nanotech self-replicator or an engineered micro-organism
>to doom the human race.
>
>Bill suggests that perhaps we need to consider if there are
>technological areas where we should not venture, because
>of the potential danger of the knowledge.
>
>This article is important, not only for what it says, but also
>how people are going to use it. It is manna from heaven to
>those who would further centralize and tighten control over
>people, and will undoubtedly be cited by those who would
>restrict privacy and anonymity.
>
>This article is partially a dystopic response to Kurzweil's
>"In the Age of Spiritual Machines", a book which I found
>provocative, if flawed.
>
>Peter Trei
>
>
>
Richard Thieme
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