Why the Future Doesn't Need Us (Bill Joy, 2000)
23 points by orib
23 points by orib
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't think to stop if they should."
This gave me a lot of respect for Bill Joy. It's nice to see someone applying ethics to the advancement of technology and the furthering of material progress. It seems to be out of fashion these days.
When I first read that, I was still at the "I can make this a career" stage of life[1] and I wondered what happened to Bill Joy to be some so jaded with technology. Now that I'm older (and older than he was when he wrote that article) I can begin to see where he's coming from [1][2].
[1] "Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things." -- Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
[2] LLM usage just goes against everything I learned and know about programming. I know I'm not the only one, but come hell or high water, the CEOs and AI tech bros will force it on the rest of society.
Software is a tool, and as a toolbuilder I must struggle with the uses to which the tools I make are put. I have always believed that making software more reliable, given its many uses, will make the world a safer and better place; if I were to come to believe the opposite, then I would be morally obligated to stop this work. I can now imagine such a day may come.
Worth thinking about these days.
Regarding tools (but media really, as extensions of the human nervous system), I recommend reading Marshall McLuhan. He seems to have gotten a lot right, although his style is difficult and un-STEM-like.
We truly live in interesting times.