Why The Future Doesn't Need Us Part 2

Joys thesis is that one day robots could dominate and humans would become obsolete. His fear is that with all of our new technologies and us working to make computer's "smarter", one day humans will have no purpose. He questions whether or not we should be continuing the advancement of technology if one day we will become obsolete. He suggests that if this is a real danger then we should stop this advancement. Huxley would disagree in the sense that technology will not make humans obsolete, rather it will allow for humans to live happy lives with less work. He would agree with the idea that in order to stop this inevitable future we must stop the advancement in technology, but he would not see technology as a bad thing. I do not think Joy is a fear monger, he does not want to make us aware of possible outcomes of our actions. Joy uses literary devices such as rhetorical devices such as "Given the incredible power of these new technologies, shouldn't we be asking how we can best coexist with them? And if our own extinction is a likely, or even possible, outcome of our technological development, shouldn't we proceed with great caution?" (P.7 para.6), metaphors such as "...to lift a million tons of rock in the sky..." (P.12 Para.9), similes such as "... superior robots would surely affect humans as North American placentals affected South American marsupials (and as humans have affected countless other species)" (p.3 para.6), and personifications such as " It is most of all the power of destructive self- replication in genetics, nanotechnology,and robotics" (P.10 Para. 4). These literary devises emphasize Joy's thesis that technology is not always a good thing. Take Brave New World for example, the society is controlled by technology. Everything down to humans being born is due to technology, but the price is that there is no freedom of though, no alone time, no history, and no science in which the society revolves around. The people there are genetically conditioned to be happy no matter the circumstances. Technology makes them artificially happy because their lives have no purpose any longer, humans have, in thought, become obsolete.