SCIENCE

TECHNOLOGY
AND SOCIETY
WHY DOES THE
FUTURE NOT
NEED US?
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
• a general term that implies the use of a
computer to model and/or replicate
intelligent behavior.
Research in AI focuses on the
development and analysis of algorithms
•

that learn and/or perform intelligent

behavior with minimal human
intervention.
 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
• These techniques have been and continue
to be applied to a broad range of problems
that arise in robotics, e-commerce,
medical diagnosis, gaming, mathematics,
and military planning and logistics, to
name a few.
• Several research groups fall under the
general umbrella of AI in the department
but are disciplines in their own right,
including robotics, natural language
processing (NLP), computer vision,
computational biology, and e-commerce.
• Specifically, research is being conducted in
estimation theory, mobility mechanisms,
multi-agent negotiation, natural language
interfaces, machine learning, active
computer vision, probabilistic language
models for use in spoken language
interfaces, and the modeling and integration
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
• At the root of AI technology is the ability
for machines to be able to perform tasks
characteristic of human intelligence.
• These types of things include planning,
pattern recognizing, understanding
natural language, learning, and solving
problems.
• AI is the ability of computer systems to
learn, reason, think and perform tasks
requiring complex decision-making.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
CAPABLE OF;
• performing complex tasks that
need judgment by analyzing
humans
• evolving with experience and
looking for better ways to execute
• handling newer inputs based on
experience.
TWO MAIN TYPES OF ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE (AI);
1. Narrow AI exhibits a sliver of some
kind of intelligence – be it reminiscent
of an animal or a human. This machine’s
expertise is, as the name would suggest,
is narrow in scope. Usually, this type of
AI will only be able to do one thing
extremely well, like recognize images or
search through databases at lightning
speed. Our current technological
TWO MAIN TYPES OF ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE (AI);
2. General intelligence would be able to
perform everything equally or better than
humans can. This is the goal of many AI
researchers, but this development may not
be done in the near future.
Current AI technology is responsible
for a lot of amazing things. These
algorithms help Amazon give you
personalized recommendations and
make sure your Google searches are
relevant to what you are looking for.
Mostly any technologically literate
person uses this type of tech every
day.
 ROBOTICS
• A branch of technology that concerns itself
strictly with robots. A robot is a programmable
machine that carries out a set of tasks
autonomously in some way. They are not
computers, nor are they strictly artificially
intelligent.
• Many experts cannot agree on what exactly
constitutes a robot. But for our purposes, we’ll
consider that it has a physical presence, is
programmable, and has some level of autonomy.
Here are a few different examples of some
Roomba (Vacuum Cleaning
Robot)
Atlas (Humanoid
Robot)
 Some of these robots, for example,
the assembly line robot or surgery
bot, are explicitly programmed to do
a job. They do not learn. Therefore
we could not consider them
artificially intelligent. These are
robots that are controlled by inbuilt
AI programs.
 Automobile Assembly
Line Arm
Surgery
Robots
Google’s Self-driving
cart
Reflection on Joy’s
“Does the Future
Need Us?”
 Bill Joy, in full William Nelson Joy, (born
November 8, 1954, Farmington Hills, Michigan,
U.S.), American software developer,
entrepreneur, and cofounder of the computer
manufacturer Sun Microsystems
• The arrival of the present millennium filled many with a
sense of hope for the future. This hope is underwritten
by a continuing faith in the technological and scientific
progress that has produced so many things that we
have come to take for granted, among them the
Internet.
• In the year 2000, Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun
Microsystems, wrote a provocative article
for Wired magazine entitled “Why the Future Doesn’t
Need Us,” arguing that human beings face the realistic
possibility of extinction because of competition from
intelligent robots, which are made possible by
technological advancements in artificial intelligence.
• Furthermore, 21st-century technologies – genetic
engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics – have the
potential to significantly extend the average human
lifespan, but they are so powerful that in them also lurk
 Joy locates these dangers in the potential (or
actual) ability of robots, engineered organisms,
and nanobots to self-replicate. If these
technologies go out of control, this amplifying
factor can lead to substantial damage in the
physical world, not unlike the potential of
computer viruses to do harm. Worse, unlike
conventional “weapons of mass destruction,”
21st-century technologies are much more readily
available to individuals or small groups, and
having knowledge alone is sufficient to enable
their deployment.
 Joy’s article is a goldmine for those who, in a
triumphant spirit, want to continue championing
•

technological progress as an unmitigated good:

many of the worst-case scenarios about which he
worries have not come to pass. But is he really
that far off?
The thought that humans may become
economically redundant at some point may
•

appear less and less of a fantasy if we continue

along the trajectory of unbridled technological
progress outlined by Joy, and enabled by a
combination of the logic of capitalism and our
human hopes and fears.
The frightening possibility is that the future
economy is one that has no need for us, if 21st-
•

century technologies can do everything better,

“…with the prospect of human-level computing
power in about 30 years, a new idea suggests
itself: that I may be working to create tools
which will enable the construction of the
technology that may replace our species. How
do I feel about this? Very uncomfortable… And
if our own extinction is a likely, or even
possible, outcome of our technological
development, shouldn’t we proceed with great
caution?”
This raises pressing questions about human life
and society. Here I wish to offer another
extreme possibility for us to consider. An
alternative to Joy’s dystopian picture, a
comparatively sanguine outcome, was outlined
 “…in communist society, where nobody
has one exclusive sphere of activity but
each can become accomplished in any
branch he wishes, society regulates the
general production and thus makes it
possible for me to do one thing today and
another tomorrow, to hunt in the
morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle
in the evening, criticize after dinner, just
as I have a mind, without ever becoming
hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”
 For Marx, what follows machines making
human beings redundant is a scenario in
which we can be freed from being mere
appendages of machines; we then have
the leisure to realize possibilities formerly
impossible, finally being able to focus on
attaining self-realization and not needing
to work more than what is necessary.
Machines will take care of repetitive and
toilsome labor on our behalf. The division
of labor and narrow specialization gives
way to the free choice of whatever
• But why should this scenario obtain (and how can we
ensure that it does), and not Joy’s alternative of human
extinction? To view human beings merely in terms of
economic value is to not view them as having intrinsic
worth, and if so, we may be overtaken by machines
sooner than we think. Lacking an understanding of our
essence and identity, of what makes us human, we may
be unable to articulate what makes us worth keeping
around.
• This is not to say that such an understanding is easy, or
even possible to achieve. But in its absence (or perhaps
even with it), we may go the way of the dinosaurs, if we
are unable (or unwilling) to stop this process. In one of
the many memorable quotes from Joy’s article, George
Dyson warns, “In the game of life and evolution there
are three players at the table: human beings, nature,
and machines. I am firmly on the side of nature. But