Bill Joy was ripped for his observation that new technologies are
almost certain to be misused, and suggested the knowledge be
guarded .. i.e. censored in some sense.
Why the future doesn't need us
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html
His later talk was better received:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bill_joy_muses_on_what_s_next.html
Most of the scientists who ripped him in his Stanford Talk that
resulted in the Wired article have moved much closer to his position.
-- Owen
On Jan 2, 2009, at 9:31 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
Russ Abbott wrote:
Let's assume that you discovered that human beings were built in
such a way that a certain kind of virus would wipe most of us out.
The killer 1918 Flu virus has been pieced together [1] and a
synthetic polio virus has been made too [2]. This will only get
easier and I'm sure the know-how will incrementally find its way
into commercial hardware/software systems. In the not so far off
future I expect that instantiating certain classes of synthetic
proteins and assembling them will involve not so much more as
loading up a genome into a sequence/protein editor, doing some
simulations, and then doing a build/run cycle. There are good
reasons and strong market pressures to have this technology be fast
and reliable in order to develop therapies for naturally-occurring
bugs. Meanwhile, understanding what these synthetic proteins
actually could do will be difficult and expensive. Unfortunately,
sooner or later, this is a scenario that will tend to invite
organizations to the game that have `issues', but no issues at all
with the risk.
On the other hand, if you had informed people, perhaps the word
would have gotten out and triggered a biological arms race.
Yes.
[1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8103
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2122619.stm
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
