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Dangerous Futures >
Technology Fear Factor
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0510.html
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Technology Fear Factor
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Daintry Duffy
Sari Kalin
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Three futurists -- George Gilder, Ray Kurzweil, and Jaron Lanier -- agree that emerging dangerous technologies will require smarter defenses, such as standards diversity, decentralized systems, a transparent society, better communications between factions, and mutually beneficial collaboration of business leaders.
Originally published in Darwin
Magazine May 2002. Published on KurzweilAI.Net July 21, 2002.
A year ago, if you'd asked someone to name the five most dangerous
devices created by human hands, a box cutter probably wouldn't have
made the list. Times change, and so do our fears. Just like manual
devices, technologies can be used for good and they can also be
used for evil.
"Technology has always been a double-edged sword," says
Ray Kurzweil, artificial intelligence researcher and inventor. "[The
harnessing of] fire was a great breakthrough but certainly could
be used for destructive purposes. The wheel gave us greater mobility
but also allowed armies to form."
The Cast:
George Gilder, chairman of Great Barrington, Mass.-based
Gilder Publishing, is also a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute,
where he directs its program on high tech and public policy.
Most Dangerous Technology: Remember the old joke: What's
the most dangerous part of the car? The nut behind the wheel. That's
pretty much Gilder's take. "The root cause of most of the technological
dangers is the individual human being who does not believe in the
Golden Rule -- who believes in a zero-sum society and imagines that
his own success can only come at the expense of others," he
says.
Ray Kurzweil, artificial intelligence researcher, founder
of Kurzweil Technologies in Wellesley, Mass., and inventor of, among
other things, music synthesizers and a reading machine for the blind.
Most Dangerous Technology: Kurzweil won't label any technology
as inherently dangerous: He thinks that any technology can be used
for either good or evil. Yet he feels that biotechnology and nanotechnology
are exponentially more powerful than any technology of the past.
To him, nanotechnology -- the creation of tiny, intelligent self-replicating
devices -- is the more powerful of the two. "Ultimately, information
technology will create entities that have human levels of intelligence
and beyond," Kurzweil says. "Combine those with biotechnology
and nanotechnology, and it's not hard to create very dangerous scenarios."
Jaron Lanier, computer scientist, artist and virtual reality
pioneer (he coined the term virtual reality); lead scientist for
the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, which studies applications
for the next-generation Internet.
Most Dangerous Technology: Lanier cites 20th century, one-way
mass media, such as radio and TV, because it can incite mass violence.
A close second, he claims, is the integration of IT and biotechnology.
Although it can help us discover miracle drugs, it could also help
terrorists build super-dangerous weapons. "That leads to terrifying
scenarios that have been explored in science fiction -- like the
drug released from a basement that only wipes out people of one
race," he says.
What are the Dangerous Technologies?
Darwinmag: So what's the best defense against bad people using
technology for evil purposes?
Ray Kurzweil: Few would deny that biotechnology and nanotechnology
are potentially dangerous. But that doesn't mean we should relinquish
or constrain the use of these technologies. Bill Joy [in an article
for Wired "Why
the Future Doesn't Need Us" ] was saying, Let's keep the
beneficial technologies and get rid of the dangerous ones. But the
same biotechnology that's going to overcome cancer and disease could
also allow a terrorist to create a bioengineered pathogen.
George Gilder, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute:
Because evil is inexorable, it is critical that the positive, creative
and anti-zero-sum forces command the leading-edge technologies.
There should not be some constraint that restricts the positive
and generous forces in the universe -- chiefly the capitalist forces,
in my point of view -- from keeping the lead in these technologies.
These biotech terrors are far more likely to be unleashed in a world
where the positive powers have relinquished biotech research and
development. A society that's full of vibrant, productive and creative
biotech companies is going to be far more alert to potential threats.
Kurzweil: I would agree. If you relinquish broad areas of
technology, you're only going to drive them underground. Only the
less responsible practitioners -- that is, the terrorists -- will
have expertise in it. If you make knowledge of these technologies
widespread, then you're going to have a lot of people thinking about
how to safeguard against them. When incidents occur, you'll have
a very broad and responsive community that'll have the tools and
the knowledge to deal with them.
Let's take one test case, the software virus, a new form of human-made,
self-replicating pathogen that replicates within a computer network.
When these first emerged, they were primitive, and observers said
that as the viruses get more sophisticated, they're going to destroy
computer networks. But the defensive technologies actually developed
more rapidly than the offensive ones because the knowledge of how
to create viruses and information technology in general was very
widespread. Today we have more sophisticated viruses that we attempt
to keep to a nuisance level. Yes, they cause billions of dollars
of damage. But the damage is less than 1 percent of the benefit
that we get from computer networks.
Jaron Lanier, virtual reality pioneer: That's a very positive
model. But I do want to point out that in nature, an ecosystem's
defense against self-replicating dangerous entities is biodiversity.
In our information systems, we simply have not been able to achieve
that sense of protective diversity. We have this absurd monoculture,
particularly on the desktop, that is practically an invitation to
viruses. We really need to discover some new policy or technique
to re-create this diversity.
Kurzweil: The reason we lack diversity is not because of
some conspiracy. It's because standards become, in a sense, self-replicating.
Everybody gets Microsoft software because everyone else has it.
If I want to send a document to someone, I hope they can read a
Word document. If I send WordStar, they're not going to be able
to read it. It becomes self-perpetuating, and I'm not sure how you
would create that diversity when there's this tendency to centralize
toward these standards.
Lanier: It's a difficult problem, but it's one that we need
to have some fresh ideas about. It's not as if biodiversity doesn't
have its costs in nature. It's expensive to diversify, but it's
worth the price. I don't propose a top-down enforcement of diversity
-- that would be a disaster. One thing that might really make a
difference is advances in software technology. I've been researching
operating systems whose fundamental binding principle is pattern
recognition rather than perfect matching so that software modules
can fit together more flexibly. I don't know if such a scheme will
ever work, but if it did, you could start to have a little bit less
tyranny of standards and a little bit more integration of diverse
components. That might be one technical solution.
Kurzweil: There are other technological solutions. If we
move toward decentralization, we create a much safer society. Sept.
11 involved centralized technology with cities, buildings and airplanes.
The Internet is very robust; no one has ever taken it down, for
even a minute. Communication over the Internet is much safer than
communication in a congregated area like a city or a building. Energy
resources such as nuclear power plants and liquid natural gas tanks
are inherently very dangerous. There are new decentralized energy
technologies like microscopic fuel cells that are inherently much
safer than those other energy technologies, which are subject to
disruption.
Darwinmag: What are some strategies for getting past the danger?
Lanier: The only way for us to humanely survive dangerous
technologies is to foster a society that's increasingly transparent
and, ultimately, radically transparent. Having everyone's eyes looking
at everyone else and not worrying so much about privacy is really
the only way to have enough eyes looking around to make sure that
nothing too dangerous happens.
There are three centers of gravity on the privacy issue -- those
who wish to see law enforcement have a privileged position in being
able to view what others are doing, those who want to have encryption
for the masses to disempower law enforcement because they are concerned
about abuses, and those who trust nobody and want all eyes applied
in all directions. That last category is where I find myself.
Currently, we're in a moment where we trust our law enforcement
far more than we do rogue members of our population, but that's
not necessarily going to be the case in 20 years. Rather than setting
up a system where we create a center of power either for the individual
or for law enforcement, what we really should seek is universal
view-ability of everyone by everyone. That's not a goal we can achieve
immediately because it offends the principles we're currently used
to. But it is one we could approach gradually.
Gilder: Interestingly, in early society, everything was
transparent. Everybody knew what everybody else was doing, and when
they didn't, they got very nervous and incinerated a witch. Modern
society has vastly expanded the domains of privacy, a movement further
enhanced through the spread of unbreakable schemes of encryption.
Privacy is becoming more and more pervasive, in league with technologies
that can be applied to destructive purposes.
Kurzweil: That's true. Technologically, trends are moving
away from transparency and toward unbreakable encryption. Encryption
is a lot easier to build than decryption. Even if the general public
allows an encryption trapdoor, people who really want to keep their
communications private, like terrorists, will have access to unbreakable
codes.
Lanier: The hope, though, of the transparent society is
that if there is a group of people up to no good, or even a solitary
person, they'll make a mistake at some point. A person can't live
their entire life universally encrypted. There has to be some crack.
And if enough people are watching at once, you'll catch them.
Darwinmag: Let's take this discussion in a slightly different
direction. What can we do to make sure that technologists of the
future -- people who will grow evermore powerful -- don't lose their
connection to humanity?
Lanier: Technical education has been more and more influenced
by the business world in the last 10 years. Yet it's possible to
gain a technical education and know nothing at all about people
-- to have virtually no exposure to the humanities or the arts and
to have poor communication skills. We've learned to teach engineering
as a purely functional activity without any connection to humanity
and without heart. That's something that should be taught. Just
look at the Sept. 11 terrorists -- I was struck that some of them
received a technical education in Germany.
Kurzweil: The terrorists had an education in a certain set
of religious values from which they were able to come up with their
destructive ideas.
Gilder: Their technical education wasn't the problem.
Lanier: Right. The primary problem with the terrorists is
their religious framework. But an educational environment should
provide, if not a challenge, an area in which these humanistic issues
are aired. Right now you can get a master's in computer science
or electrical engineering, and nobody really knows who you are outside
of the classroom. That sense of anonymity in education is unhealthy.
Kurzweil: We have to assume, though, that there will be
people, movements, and ideas that are of a zero-sum nature, that
will be destructive to advance their own goals. We're not going
to get rid of that. The pervasiveness of al-Qaida has been shocking
to people. But even if we deal with that organization, the opportunity
and desire to use the powers of technology for destructive ends
is going to remain. Society needs to protect itself.
Lanier: Certainly. Yet we all agree that humans are the
problem, not so much technology. So we have to take responsibility
for the fact that as technologists, we are highly influential in
the education system that is, in turn, one of the more influential
institutions in shaping young people.
Gilder: Well, the Unabomber went to Harvard. He went through the
general education curriculum with me.
Lanier: Yeah, but that was in the '60s, right? [laughter]
What Does the Future Hold?
Darwinmag: Are there some technologies that can make the world
less dangerous?
Kurzweil: There are ways to use technology to create a much
safer society. Virtual communication is one. It's getting more and
more realistic. The three of us are now engaged in an auditory virtual
reality -- that's what the telephone has been for a century. Jaron
is a pioneer in full-immersion visual virtual reality, and there
are various ways that can be achieved over the Net. That will be
ubiquitous by the end of this decade. We'll ultimately have the
other senses as well. We'll be able to meet with each other in these
virtual environments, and there are advantages to that. Physical
violence against another person is much more difficult in a virtual
environment.
Gilder: So, face-to-face negotiations with Osama bin Laden
could be conducted. But to what end?
Lanier: Well, I might sound a little soppy or idealistic
here, but I really do believe that when people are given the chance
to contact one another, to really communicate, you can elicit a
little drop of empathy even in somebody who's been raised to hate
you. We've seen societies do just that. For instance, Germany has
been able to reconcile with its past remarkably well. So I don't
want to assume that there's a group of people who are simply beyond
hope. My view of communications technology is that with it, there
is hope of reaching even people in al-Qaida. That's my own idealism.
Blame it on my California residency or something.
Darwinmag: So, what do you think the future holds?
Lanier: I was at the World Economic Forum in New York [at
the beginning of February 2002], and while I was there I spent time
with the summit of religious leaders and talked to various people
from different religions. They were all doing their best to get
along, but they did this by not really listening to one another.
Then I spent some time with the protesters outside. They didn't
even know what they were against, and they certainly didn't know
what they were for. There was just a fuzzy nihilism that was very
disappointing. I also spent time with the world leaders in various
meetings, and they were all doing their best but, once again, were
not really on track.
However, when I spent time with businessmen, things were remarkable.
There was one particular meeting of Saudi, Jordanian, and Israeli
businessmen where they all really listened to each other, they were
all action oriented, they were warm, they were authentic, and it
was really the most hopeful meeting by far.
I don't want to pretend that capitalism doesn't have its flaws.
But right now, capitalist enterprise is the most effective technique
that we have for bridging gaps in culture, background, and experience.
Business leaders have a tremendous opportunity to help build a world
of increasing connectedness and trust. It's urgent for businesses
not just to make investments in troubled parts of the world but
really to become involved in them and to think strategically in
them. I don't think we have any choice but to pursue that.
Gilder: You're right on that point. Businessmen can create
circles of cooperation because they know they're dependent on the
successes of others. The Golden Rule is inherent in capitalism.
Your success is dependent upon the enrichment of your customers
and even your competitors and your suppliers, and you have to cooperate
with all of them. Business offers constant education in altruism.
A further point about the dynamic of business and interplay with
technology today is that it is increasingly distributed. Power is
increasingly dispersed. This dispersion of power ultimately resolves
itself in the unleashing of the creativity of every individual.
As each individual optimizes his own creativity, he understands
that he is dependent on the creativity of others, and that understanding
leads to increasing cooperation.
Kurzweil: You know, the 1991 coup against Gorbachev was
broken not by Yeltsin bravely standing on a tank but by the decentralized
electronic communications industry -- the fax machines and early
forms of e-mail. Everybody kept in touch with one another and knew
what was going on. Decentralized technology is very democratizing.
I'm very optimistic about the future, and I'm hopeful that we can
make progress in the 21st century without the type of pain and distress
that we experienced in the 20th century.
We need to think about how we can build our technologically rich
society in a way that avoids potential dangers, and we need to examine
the destructive nature of the human being as a scientific and technological
problem that we want to actually address. One thing we've shown
is that if we put our minds to a problem and think about its dimensions,
we're very often successful at coming up with a solution.
Copyright © by Darwin
Magazine May 2002.
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Mind·X Discussion About This Article:
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Capitalism and Privacy Bill of Rights
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Hello all,
I agree about biotech, privacy and capitalism in particular. Biotech (& nano) both bring many tools and weapons. This has near term possible impact. Capitalism: Easy to make fun of, but massively powerful in so many ways. I have more confidence in it than in government to shape things.
Privacy: We need a surveillance bill of rights going so we can do privacy right. Below is a draft of a surveillance bill of rights that I just typed up. Would love feedbackgood or bad:
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Surveillance Bill of Rights
The purpose of the following document is to make an agreement with ourselves and our government concerning the levels of surveillance (SV), freedom, privacy and other areas of imminent importance due primarily to technological innovation and weapons of mass destruction availability. Since there are new disruptive evolutionary forces at work in our society, we will need to adapt many of our systems, taking what is most important or pragmatic and shedding others.
The most important belief that we want to carry forward is Freedom. To be American is to be free. This freedom must be protected but tempered too - there are practical limits. We may sacrifice some privacy, but in exchange gain more freedom. We believe this to be a pragmatic and implementable solution for most of our society.
In order to stop individuals from acting as cancerous growths in our society by acting in terroristic ways, setting off chaos and mass destruction, we will have to utilize increasing SV. However, we want to maintain a lifestyle with maximum personal freedoms -- even more freedoms than are currently guaranteed in 2002. Individuals have freedoms in areas like religion, freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The NEW rights protect against persecutions of individuals based on lifestyle choices ' what we call Victimless Crimes. These may be defined as behaviors between consenting adults which do not harm any outside parties. Current laws dictate legal behavior based upon outdated and restrictive moral values and mainly are directed at actions related to Sex, Drugs and gambling. In the new paradigm, sexual orientation (straight, bi, homo, trysexual, etc) and drug use are not treated in any way as crimes. Drug abuse is treated as a medical condition. Sexual crimes (rape) are treated just as seriously as always.
We must legally protect lifestyle choices as rights for an obvious and practial reason. Law enforcement agencies are increasingly using techniques of surveillance as these technologies grow ever more powerful and invisible. We see a trend towards all-pervasive surveillance as virtually inevitable. If we as a democracy accept this emergence of SV in the black and white terms of contemporary debate and simply agitate for privacy, we may find that one way or another we will be surveilled ' it will simply be with our consent and knowledge (ie Transparency) or without. If we agree that surveillance is necessary to protect our society against the unlimited potential for individuals and small groups to wreak havoc on us (as demonstrated on 9/11), then we come against the reality that any attempt to implement surveillance today,would find that nearly half of our society would be considered criminals (mainly from lifestyle choices involving sex, drugs or gambling -- at some point in each citizen's life). Thus we may see a battle against surveillance that divides this nation right down the middle, with attempts to hamstring it in court or even engage in radical opposition. In either case, we would be inadvertently allowing terrorists to hide in the shadows and plot against us. So, do we want to make 50% of our own society enemies in our war, or just the real 1% of terrorists and violent criminals out there?.
SV is done in all directions. Government can watch the people and people can watch the government and everyone can watch the media. Top-down, Bottom-up and Horizontally. What has made America great is that we have believed in our system and participated in all levels and have increased its transparency. There is no reason to stop now, we must gain even more control over government by eliminating as many walls as possible.
ASSUMPTIONS: There are at least 3 levels of crime: misdemeanors, felonies and chaos (weapons of mass destruction, 10 deaths or more) There are at least three levels of surveillance, high (1, camera mounted insects), medium (2, telephone listening) and low (3, ear level listening)
PREFACE: In exchange for allowing the government to watch citizens with ever increasing surveillance, we make certain expectations for the government. These include:
Amendments:
1) SV of all types is primarily used to watch for chaos or the planning of chaos.
2) SV is never to be used for misdemeanors of any type.
3) Sex, Drug and Gambling laws are repealed as the cost to our society is too great
4) SV can be used for violent felonies and chaos only
5) SV of any type cannot be used for competitive business reasons
6) Anonymity must be guaranteed periodically for elections, whistelblowing and other specified areas.
7) SV is not used to enforce granular non violent personal choices. ' kill yourself but no others!
8) Religion can be practiced until it incites chaos, genocide or war.
Any More?????????????
Any Less?????????????
Erik Sayle
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Re: Capitalism and Privacy Bill of Rights
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Couple things.
I think one sound provision for a SV bill of rights would be to make SV evident. If the government mandates that everyone has to have a camera installed in his bathroom and everyone can punch up everyone else's feed at any time, the system should also track who's accessing my feed and report back to me. Maybe it'll come to road signs: SV LIMIT 30. (I'd also like to propose the Orwell as the unit of measure displayed on these hypothetical signs.)
I also think your inclusion of "and no harm to others" in the drug/sex/cards permissiveness idea has a potentially longer reach than you realize, at least under a strict-constructionalist interpretation. If couple A is practicing sexual/chemical behaviors that carry no risk of HIV transmission, and couple B is practicing sexual/chemical behaviors with a dramatically higher rate, don't the As have some right to complain? After all, even if HIV is transmitted in consensual sex, each case will deal harm to others, both in terms of potential further transmission and of medical/insurance/etc. resource consumption. Likewise, suppose that Mr. B drives a small motorcycle that poses little risk to any car in a crash, and that Mr. A protects himself with a heavy, reinforced SUV capable of dealing many times the damage. Surely B will cry foul.
In short, real life involves everyone subscribing everyone around them to various risks and harms-- physical and otherwise-- and insisting otherwise as a basic principle will only create vast layers of restrictive law.
R.D. Hight |
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Future prediction questions
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Hi
My name is Jodie Faulke and i am currently studying the Year 12 at st.Aidan's AGS in Brisbane, QLD, Australia) and i have been given an social and ethical assignment in other words 'futurisim.' As part of the assignment i must conduct a delphi survey regarding possible trends and developments that may occur into the future. I would be very appreciative if you could please answer some of the following questions about technology, population, environment, habitat, and transportation in the specific time stages of 10, 25, and 50 years into the future, in as much detail as possible. I would also be very appreciative if you would return them to me ASAP. Thanks a lot.
If it is also possible could you please send me current, past and future trends in these areas as well as graphs, diagrams etc. If you are unsure about any of the questions just suggest things which you thing may happen in the future if we continue how we are currently. Some of the questions may not relate to your field however this questionare was sent out to everyone so just leave the ones you are unable to answer.
1. What can you predict about the future trends of population? Will they continue to increase or start to decrease? What countries will have the most and least people?
2. What is happening/could happen to decrease the amount of people on Earth and in countries? Why?
3. What will be the total population in 2010, 2025, 2050? Considering present trends.
4. What are your ideas (or you know off) about the future of our environment given the present trends? (number of forests, trees, pollution, deserts, rainforest etc.)
5. Will these trends continue to increase into the future or will they begin to decrease? why?
6. What do you think will be happening to the environment by the year 2010? 2025? and 2050? (ideas)
7. What are your ideas (or you know of) about future scarcity levels given the present trends? (number of trees, animals, fuel, clean water etc.)
8. Will these trends continue to increase into the future or will they begin to decrease as more trees are planted?
9. What are some ideas which are helping to decrease scarcity levels?
10. What do you think will be happening to the scarcity levels by the year 2010? 2025? 2050? (ideas)
11. What are your ideas (or you know off) about future transportation vehicles given the present trends? (Trains, cars, taxis, buses, planes etc.)
12. What do you think will be achieved in transportation by the year 2010? Will it be smaller and more efficient? (eg. Design, efficiency, less pollution, cost.) 2025? 2050? (ideas)
13. What are your ideas (or you know off) about future technology given present trends? (Microchips, computers)
14. What do you think will be achieved by technology by the year 2010? (Will it be small and more efficient? 2025? 2050? (ideas)
Very much appreaciative,
Jodie Faulke |
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Re: Future prediction questions
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1. What can you predict about the future trends of population? Will they continue to increase or start to decrease? What countries will have the most and least people? They should continue to grow, however, catastrophies, like weapons of mass destruction, plague, etc may cull the herd.
2. What is happening/could happen to decrease the amount of people on Earth and in countries? Why?
NBC Warfare, AIDS, war, drought.
3. What will be the total population in 2010, 2025, 2050? Considering present trends.
7B, 3B, 3.5B
4. What are your ideas (or you know off) about the future of our environment given the present trends? (number of forests, trees, pollution, deserts, rainforest etc.)
Depends on what the weapons are, nuclear hurts all life, trees and ocean. Biological affects mostly people. Nanotech maybe all organic life.
5. Will these trends continue to increase into the future or will they begin to decrease? why? By 2050 we will either be through the transition and into the "Brave New World" OR we will have hit a snag. Anarchy or AI taking over.
6. What do you think will be happening to the environment by the year 2010? 2025? and 2050? (ideas) Trends are positive in Western Democracies, America, Europe, Australia, Japan. On the other hand, Africa, Asia, Middle East, Central/South America, Brazil & Indonesia especially toasted. All depends on population. More population kills more trees, runoff increases, things do poorly. Of course weapons of mass destruction is the wildcard.
7. What are your ideas (or you know of) about future scarcity levels given the present trends? (number of trees, animals, fuel, clean water etc.) Depnds on where the trees are. Canada, America, Russia have plenty of trees. Tropical areas on the other hand do not, they are decreasing rapidly. Large animals die off. Roaches increase. Nanotech may produce cheap fuel in 15 years. This could change many things, however, I think people would still try to kill each other via war until Friendly AI implemented.
8. Will these trends continue to increase into the future or will they begin to decrease as more trees are planted? You like trees......mostly independent of trees, though in general an area that we do control is planting trees. We could probably talk most of the world into planting trees before you can get them to stop fighting. So control what you can.
9. What are some ideas which are helping to decrease scarcity levels? Of trees...? Computers are helping. Electronic communication means less printers, papers, magazines.
10. What do you think will be happening to the scarcity levels by the year 2010? 2025? 2050? (ideas)
11. What are your ideas (or you know off) about future transportation vehicles given the present trends? (Trains, cars, taxis, buses, planes etc.) There will be NBC pollution some places. This will require a radical rethinking of transportation. Planes may be tough, since if people can make little coke bottle sized nanoplanes via computer link and can target a 747, then planes would need phalynx laser cannons. Vehicles would have filtration installed/retrofitted.
12. What do you think will be achieved in transportation by the year 2010? Will it be smaller and more efficient? (eg. Design, efficiency, less pollution, cost.) 2025? 2050? (ideas)
13. What are your ideas (or you know off) about future technology given present trends? (Microchips, computers)
14. What do you think will be achieved by technology by the year 2010? (Will it be small and more efficient? 2025? 2050? (ideas) 2010 just hitting hard the base of the ascencion. Some areas will increase faster than others so that by 2025 we have mish mash of low & high tech. Hopefully there is a balance. Regionalism will have increased on some levels. For instance containment of NBC problems will slow globalisation rapidly. But internatinal surveillance will hopefully have increased, to stop the "Uluflangy tribe" from using radioactive genetically engineered killer ants. The diversity that we will need will be in the form of adaptations to new weapons. For instance, those people that grow body condoms should do well. Those whose skin becomes porous like frogs....not so well. Groups that invest in plastic bubbles may also do well. By 2050 groups of people will form containment zones of say 50,000 people. They become "organs or organelles". With special transportation thouroughfares (blood vessels) and a global immune system that quickly eradicates cancerous growths (and hopefully mosquitoes, roaches and fire ants!) There is no serious crime, since the surveillance sees everywhere, but there is still low level riff raff allowed. We have to be careful of the Terminators, but we just need to engineer male & female AI and they will bicker so much we can conrol them. Sex is the key. Sex provides diversity, so if the robots stop having sex, then we gotta watch out. ( I just made that up, but I like it - I believe it!) Let's all share world piece! :-)
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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There are a number of points which I would like to address. First and foremost, I note that virtually all of the panelists seemed to casually dismiss the utter decimation of privacy.
I do nothing illegal in my free time. I have "nothing to hide". But this does not mean that I want my life available as reality television webcasted over the internet to whomever would choose to access it. I think this kind of technology is indicative of a dialectic between 1984 and Brave New World - whereby we amuse ourselves with entertaining trivialities while monitored ceaselessly by John Ashcroft (Did I say Ashcroft? I meant "Big Brother.") I think a lack of privacy helps to dismantle a sense of individuality, and i think it strikes a serious blow at our humanity. I refuse to be connected all the time - I demand time for quiet and undisturbed reflection, alone and unmonitored.
I will leave the country if I have to.
Next: security concerns about tracking malcontents and dangerous folk have a number of serious issues contained in them. The first is the definition of "malcontents" (footnote: COINTELPRO) and the second is that "complete transparency" ignores an inevitable tradeoff. Privacy and liberty come at a price, casualties of every variety. If the price for a crime-free society is a privacy-free society, then the price is too high. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security." I think the same could be said for even a permanent security. If the government offered me a deal whereby I would never be mugged, robbed, accosted, or victimized in any way, but would be monitored 24/7, I would turn it down. I will take my chances and I will keep my liberties.
A transparent society is necessarily unindividualistic. The individual is part of a network, a web; and they are *never* cut off. With this constant connectivity, it is inevitable that the definition of self should become much more oriented around the group than around the individual (The irony is that societies which demeaned the individual were heavily derided by ardent capitalist Ayn Rand). Finally, a brief note about capitalism. The reason that men and women of different cultures can pursue business ventures together more readily than religious conversations is that the businesspeople have a common language and a common goal which are the same: money. It does not "bridge a cultural divide". It ignores the culture altogether for a new, shared culture composed of corporate infrastrucures, overseas export processing zones, and outsourcing. Capitalism will pursue whatever means allow it to further its goal: money. Technology is necessarily important to that goal (increased efficiency) and culture is necessarily irrelevant (it just gets in the way). Therefore, capitalism supports technology and ignores cultural boundaries. This does not mean it deserves our hope, our good faith, or our trust.
On the contrary, it is the corporation, not the citizen, who warrants constant and critical scrutiny (as the recent series of accounting scandals have revealed with devastating perspicacity). |
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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blakjac21,
I have all of the same concerns that you have expressed, and I am not sure of a way out. Before long, "leaving the country" will not suffice (perhaps leaving the planet, but even then ...)
The web of connectedness is coming and it is pervasive. Increasingly, we will exchange physical money for electronic debits and credits, which serve to track our every transaction and even our location.
The privacy I am concerned about is not whether some private person in country X can tune in to my life, for (with the exception of the psychopath) they represent no harm to me. It is the "state" that concerns me, as they have the means to coerce my behaviors in too many ways. Loss of job, income, even freedom of movement could disappear if we look "too suspicious".
The ordinary person can "spy" on my life, because they exert virtually no coercive power.
Likewise, they can make career of tracking me, or a few people, while the state has the means (computers/databases) to track millions at once, sifting for patterns of behaviors, strings of connection between seemingly unrelated encounters.
I don't know a way out of this, as technology seems to possess a will of its own to come forth. It cannot be shut down or denied, and any attempt to enforce or restrict individuals from this technology only guarantees that the powerful, and the criminal, will hold it in monopoly.
I don'y know that it would do much good, but I would be in favor of laws that require EVERY meeting of civil government (not simply the formal house and senate floors, where we watch a speech being given to an empty chamber), but EVERY committee meeting televised and recorded, and available for immediate playback by anyone, at any time. The business of civil government should be conducted in the open, to include meetings with lobbyists.
If anyone should lose all privacy, at least in the course of their working business day, it should be the senators, the congress, all cabinets of the executive, and the judiciary. I would have each and every one of them followed, from work begin to work end. If they do not wish to perform under such microscopic scrutiny, let them step aside to make room for those that are willing to make such a sacrifice in the service of the people and civil government.
There may still be "shadow government" acting behind the scenes, but it will become harder for such forces to operate.
And if any elected officer or cabinet member of judiciary member is caught "doing business behind a closed door", let the penalty be severe.
If we cannot stop technology, we have no choice but to have it work for us. The powerful have the largest computers and databases, per se, but the people have the numbers. We can effect more "watching" than they can, and they are a smaller target. It is simply a matter of clear purpose and coordinated action.
Cheers! ____tony b____ |
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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Grant,
I would agree, "the strongest factor to conformity is peer pressure". But this is decomposable into two aspects. (1) sense of peer-dom, and (2) sense of pressure.
I surmise that if everyone could, effectively, watch everyone else, and know they were being so watched, the ones who would feel the greatest sense of peer-pressure would be those who believe they can "beat the game", taking actions that the vast majority would view as representing a great "harm-factor" to others.
Beyond this, I suspect that we would redefine the notion of "peer-dom". We would see the great bulk of the world's people engaged in activities that, although different and initially disconcerting, serve not to direct harm, nor produce harm. I suspect that our notion of "normal" would become broadened, rather than narrowed. Thenceforth, our notion of "harm" would become focused upon real harm, rather than the false sense of potential harm engendered by "different".
So the question becomes, "conform to what?"
Cheers! ____tony b____
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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The coin of peer pressure has two sides -- fear of rejection and desire to be accepted. We wear the clothes we wear, use certain words, phrases and gestures, and cop certain attitudes because that's what the people around us do. We wear one suit of clothes to work and change to another set after work because we are going from one environment to another and want to conform to the crowd we are associating with at the time.
Language is a game we play, and you can't play it alone. We gain status points by coming up with the right words to fit the occasion. We spend hours trying to top each other with jokes, put downs, facts about sports and current events, and being the first with the juciest gossip about people we know or would like to know. We do this because it's expected from the people we hang around with. When we do it well, we are rewarded with praise, laughter, comradery, slaps on the back and high fives.
The positive to this kind of behavior (the rewards for doing it well) are much more powerful as a producer of conforming actions than the negative (fear of not fitting in). Fear of not fitting in is more likely to produce rebellious behavior and the sour grapes response. The complex give and take of social discourse within a group is not easy for an outsider to learn and understand. This makes gaining acceptance hard to do. I read about a New York lawyer who moved to New England and after living there for 30 years was still referred to as the lawyer from New York.
Someone did a great play on it with a TV commercial for cheese when a cow from Wisconsin tries to explain to two California cows what snow is. After she tried and they failed to understand what she was talking about, the Calif. cows realized she just didn't fit in and they all went their separate ways. It was a perfect example of how peer pressure works.
So I guess the answer to the question, "conform to what?" is whatever is happening in the place where we are. A lot of the stupidest stuff we do is done trying to impress someone -- a prospective girl friend, a crowd of guys we'd like to hang around with, etc. Cops who draw their guns and pump 40 or 50 rounds into a man who didn't have a gun often say they didn't dare not shoot. If one cop draws and shoots, they all have to. They know what's expected of them. You get in a fight with one member of a gang and you end up having to take them all on. It's expected.
This is the kind of pressure I'm talking about. It's pervasive and powerful. It shapes behavior in every country in the world. You're either one of us or one of them. Nobody wants to be one of them. |
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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Grant,
All true. But still, conforming to those "around us" is a function of the definition of "around us". Despite our technology to date, those "around us" are still typically those physically near.
If the "everything connected" trend continues, physical locality will be less important, and replaced by something far more fluid. Choosing ones "neighbors" and community may be something that is almost effortlessly variable.
Thus one could argue that conformance to peers will be equalized by the counterforce of freer peer selection, "choosing peers who conform to you".
Personally, I still cannot decide whether "everyone watching everyone" will, or will not lead to conformance. It may in some ways, and not in other ways. But I cannot help but think we will at least come to view a much broader range of lifestyles to be "normal", and thus non-threatening.
Cheating, as in business dealings, may become difficult ... so we might see it curtailed.
Cheating, as in "intimate relationships" may become difficult, but human desires might simply override the "its a negative" viewpoint, and for some, monogamy may become merely optional.
If I were to discover that 10% of my male friends were gay, or that 10% of couples I considered "married" were actually "swingers", I don't think I would feel any additional pressure to be gay, or a swinger, any more than they would feel pressure to become straight or monogamous. Presently, the pressures exerted by society to be straight/monogamous are overwhelming, and yet the gay and bi do not "conform" as it is.
So, I see certain pressures as diminishing, as opposed to increasing.
But perhaps you were thinking of a different kind of conformance.
Cheers! ____tony b____
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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Tony, I agree with many of your points.
In order for us to be human, there needs to be variability (computers have little variability) especially pertaining to sex! Of course everything relates to sex, so.....we need flashy fins, cars, hair, brains - diversity.
Remember that historically much morality was created to protect people (monogamy protects from STDs). If we can use surveillance and technology to protect people, you may relax some morals that are not universal.
Beyond that, there needs to be some chance in life. The unknown, some low level risk. Ideally, for example, when surveillance is everywhere, we may be able to get rid of guns. But we still might allow some level of physical confrontation to occur. You can still get beaten up. You can think of many star trek solutions to this problem.
In order to help create an environment that is condusive to some levels of diversity, there should be diversity free zones, physical and/or virtual.
A physical diversity free zone (privacy) would be for instance your home and certain common areas where there is no surveillance allowed. This may be equivalent to privacy. In this case, we would need to outlaw dangerous technology in these areas. Probably would need to have nanotech to fully implement - friendly AI? You may get searched before you went into these areas. But inside your home, you can be freaky. In common areas you can be freaky. No surveillance in these places. This is essentially similar to America today. Your home is your castle.
A virtual diversity free zone (conformity) is created by changing the rules and the laws. You just renegotiate many of the rules of our society. The four major maorality biggies mentioned earlier (killing, lies, etc) are still illegal. But many of the others are decriminalized and subjected to varying levels of advertising/promotion/acceptance. For instance body adornment advertising or artistry might be accepted or evn promoted. Recreational drug use might be accepted, while serious abuse should be treated.
We may need to use more virtual techniques for the next ~25 years to get through the transition, then we can implement more physical privacy again.
The San Francisco Bay Area (where I live) currently uses a bit of both, (physical diversity is part of the constitution) but many nuisance laws are not enforced (virtual diversity). San Francisco has great diversity, perhaps the most in the world. The people are very diverse, happy, healthy, productive, innovative, technological. It is relatively safe and people respect each others beliefs. Some may not like San Francisco for personal reasons, most of us can think of many worse places to live! The quality of the experience here is party caused by a lot of motivated people getting active. In most cases, these good things do not arrive spontaneously. As Austin Powers said - "with freedom comes responsibilty!" In SF, the people have a lot of rights and the government is pretty weak and fair. Most citizens do not fear the police much, and in fact the police are very friendly to the residents - and vica versa. There are issues with homelessness, but they move to SF, and the promise of technology is to make homelessness extinct. In fact, reforming drug laws may cut the homeless population down as well drastically reducing crime. In San Francisco, since people do not care about the morality of their neighbor, it creates an environemnt of respect for everyone. People wear their hearts on their sleave, but after awhile, who cares. Do what you want, just don't hurt me. My neighbors exert very little pressure on me to conform. Most people can buy alcohol, but that does not mean everyone drinks 24/7. What you see is people using self control very effectively.
One intersting thing to note, is that just because people can do wild or diverse does not mean they will automatically do it all the time. I have had many friends that once the newness is over, its no longer as exciting anymore. For example, think of the crazy music we all listened to in high school. Most of us have not followed the path of living like rock stars of our own free will After awhile, even orgies get boring.
Singapore and asia may be the opposite at least about diversity. I have not been there, but I think so. They have some things in common with SF Bay Area. I think they employ surveillance very differntly today. There is less physical and logical diversity free zones. In general, in Asia, as the grow more advanced they become more nonconformist. Look at Japan, they are going through their mid 70's hippy time now. China still in the 50's these days. Singapore like the 30's and the future mixed in a sort of bad way together.
Those who would like a more restrictive society can try to get people to listen to their memes, and many might listen. Good for them. I bet many people would still believe in a modified Christainity, etc.
societies were controlled by religion until ~100 years ago. Since then advertising has played an increasing role. TV and advertising is our religion. Eventually, for example, if nano happens, this may make capitalism unnecessary, making advertising irrelevant. Then people will probaly combine a hodge-podge of belief systems together.
So as we continue to install the cameras right now, we should begin to think about specific details of how we will implement surveillance in the near term, with an eye to the long term.
Erik Sayle |
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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Erik,
I think we are basically "on the same page". (Perhaps we are both optimists :)
One point about the technology, however.
I don't know if it will be possible to maintain "surveillance-free zones", even in one's home. We might keep the government from surveilling us (at least, "by law") but I don't know if it will be pssible to keep out the world, as it were.
I suspect that within 20 years (max), kids will be able to go to Radio Shack and pick up a bag of "instant surveil-ants(tm) networking". These buggers will crawl wherever they are directed, spread themselves out like a cloud, "talk" to one another using ultra-wide-band "chirps" indistinguishable from background radio noise, and transmit picture and sound anonymously to the "great big network". They may even act like the "compound eye" of an insect, whereupon the retransmitted signals are reconstructed elsewhere to form holographic images of their locale.
Laws may be passed making their "misuse" illegal, but I doubt they will be of any great effect. And those laws may make things worse. Like guns, "when they are outlawed, only outlaws will have them" (and the government, if one cares to make the distinction.)
Personally, if I had no choice but to be watched 24/7, I would be just as gross and disgusting as I am today :) And given such surveillance, I would feel safer knowing that ANYONE could be watching, as opposed to fearing that only the FBI might be.
I just might need the "strong alibi", so to speak.
Cheers! ____tony b____
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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You're assuming these technologies are economically viable, which they aren't for a multitude of reasons. Overwhelming consumer indifference will be one snag (your average person isn't interested, or even capable, of operating most high tech devices as it is; computers are used to chat with friends and plagiarize term papers and the internet itself is an assemblage of primarily erroneous and useless information), and the development cost associated with widescale infrastructural 'conversions' is so enormous that we needn't be giving any serious thought to our progeny (re: million dollar neural networks) committing parricide or considering the philosophical implications of merging man with machine; any 'Millennium III' prognostications including such notions are assuming we'll discover things that we haven't yet discovered. We haven't yet designed questions that will yield useful answers, making this effrontery all the more absurd.
"These buggers will crawl wherever they are directed, spread themselves out like a cloud, "talk" to one another using ultra-wide-band "chirps""
I, too, watched Minority Report ;) I thought this scene somewhat ridiculous; if we can make intelligent robots that utilize logico-divergence and induction to solve problems, why are people working at all? Why isn't everyone consuming designer drugs and sitting around in a chemically induced state of blissful narcosis (we can sure as hell design systems (or our slavish, sentient computers can) that provide nourishment)?
-s
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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s,
OK, I may have been speaking a bit hyperbolically. But costs will go down as those who "want it first" (the military) demand to have the capability for battlefield control. Moreover, "ease of use" should increase as well.
Indeed, one of my fears is that, 20 years hence, toy stores will offer "do it yourself virus design kits" as it were, and I don't mean computer viruses. Ok, that may be "a bit" more hyperbole, but researchers will have access to such technologies, and I doubt it will cost "millions".
As you say, the "internet" (being largely content-unregulated) has a great mixture of garbage and truth, useless and useful, and the merely entertaining. I imagine that relatively inexpensive "personal search-bots", of varying sophistication, will assist the citizen to "find what they want", and even correlate sufficiently independents sources to yield a "truth-likelihood" value of some serviceability. It is certainly something that would be a "boon".
Today, folks still spend more time (I suspect) watching HBO/Showtime/et al (the tube) than they spend online. The "internet" is still a nascent phenomenon. When bandwidth grows and becomes yet more affordable, we will see this change, and the distinction between TV, Telephone, and Internet blur.
When TV first appeared, not every home grabbed on. When color TV appeared, same. When cable became available, same. (Heck, these "rabbit ears" still work ok. So the pictures a bit fuzzy, and who needs more than 3 channels, anyway?)
So, perhaps not 20 years. Maybe 30. The point is, this is "the direction", and unless something "totally different" intervenes, it seems inevitable. Connectivity will grow, and you won't need to be a "system's guru", no less a rocket scientist, to get it to work for you.
Cheers! ____tony b____
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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s,
Yes, there will be Luddite uprisings, and folks "tuning out", and laws passed hither and yon. But it will not serve to halt the trend. It is too "versatile", to "leverageable", and already too accessible to the amateur hobbyist, no less the world-wide research community, no less the industrial and commercial giants, military and civil government, etc.
If it will be "stopped", it will be stopped by something HUGE, and likely rather uncomfortable.
We either use it to our advantage (power to the people), or simply get used. Take your pick.
Cheers! ____tony b____ |
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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Hello s,
I see your point and what you are trying to say. However, can we really stop the technology from going too far? That is, to what extend, as individuals, do we influence the technological advancements in our society? Do we have control over it at all? I think that the answer can both be yes and no. If we give it some deep thoughts then we may notice that technologists keep on advancing whether the society asks for it or not. The thirst for more knowledge is embedded in mankind. We crave for more knowledge. In our search for awareness, we take a certain amount of risk. This risk is often measured differently on individual levels. Let us take the invention of a car. Most people will consider car as a great invention. Among many other advantages, it enables us to cover large distances in much shorter time. So what was the risk involved in its manufacturing? Well, a car is not considered dangerous unless the driver behind the wheel is crazy. However, if we think about the deaths that have been caused due to car accidents, the numbers will surprise us. Before the invention of cars, horses and carts did not cause many deaths. Regardless, of the high fatality rate, car manufacturing is one of the booming industries in North America. We, as individuals of the society, are very much addicted to it and being blinded by the drawbacks, we continue to support its growth by purchasing the vehicles of our dreams. Technologists make cars appealing to their consumers. They use their magical wands to make us believe what they want us to believe. Hence, no matter how much one wishes not to see a future of auto-replicating nanobots and a complete submergence of nature and technology, maybe even Brave New World, it is bound to happen. What we choose to do with it? or how we react to it? are the questions that cannot be answered right away. I am sure if people knew the number of accidents that would have been caused as a result of automobiles before their invention, then there would have been a large number of people trying to rebel against technology. Lack of knowledge resulted in no rebellions and then later on everyone got used to the devastating headlines. In addition, people started putting trust in manufacturer's words of designing a better and safer vehicle.
All of the above discussion puts somewhat a negative effect on the development of technology. That was not the intention at all. Of course, there are many advantages to growth in any area. For instance, let us think about what technology will be able to accomplish in the field of medicine. It will most likely become possible to save more lives compared to the present. Physicians and surgeons will be able to perform sophisticated and delicate operations on human body safely. How about the field of criminology? Technologists hope to reduce the crime rate by using various sophisticated gadgets. That gives rise to another question. If technology advances, then wouldn't there be more threats towards society, especially involving terrorism? Like it has been discussed in the introduction of Technology Fear Factor, with more advanced technology we will still be 1 percent ahead of the "bad" guys. One cannot put a complete stop in the development. It will always continue on in the background. When kept a secret, technology can become more destructive. Hence, it is much healthier to let it advance out it in the open, that is, let it become more visible.
What about ethical or legal issues? These points come up when we think about our privacy. Privacy, in a way, is our individuality. Not everyone breaks the laws when not being watched. At the same time, most of us still do not like being observed constantly. This seriously becomes a problem when we have neither any control nor any knowledge of who is recording our every single action. In addition, it becomes even more serious when we have no idea how all this information will be used or who will have access to it. On the contrary, some people can argue that doing so will prevent crimes and that it will make us feel more secure and protected. As for my own personal opinion, both parties have a logistic point of view. One can go on for hours arguing for both sides. I think that it all depends on how far we go and how do we react. What is "far"? It is something that cannot be measured. Instead, it is what we accept as members of a society.
To summarize all that has been said above: technology will progress, and perhaps even at exponential rate, according to Ray Kurzweil. There will definitly be both benefits and losses. What will balance out what, is still a question. We can cross our fingers and hope that only sane people sit behind the wheel and drive the car safely. If worse comes to worse and the consequences are bad, then we will be humans and just like always, we most likely will find a way out. |
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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Tasneem,
Good post. I agree with the general drift of your comments. Technology almost has a "life of its own" (powered by human curiousity). In many ways, this "limits" our collective ability to "steer" this automobile ... :)
But I might offer (optimistically) not to discount the power of a good idea, effectively propagated, to effect a "steering" of sorts.
I consider the recent post by James Jaeger ("Death of the Internet") to echo many warnings I have given my colleagues about how "big-media"+"big-pipes" plan to turn the internet into a glorified TV broadcast, effectively turning "mind-marketshare" into a scarce resource. This trend needs to be countered strongly, but how except to "yell" about it?
I think about "killer apps", and how they subtly effect peoples expectations, thus demand, thus further entrepeneurial opportunity. The Internet was around since the 70's, but only university and government "geeks" made much use of it (requiring arcane text-commands be issued to effect "file-ftp" and "telnet session".) Then, in the early 90's, Tim Berners-Lee at CERN invented a "nicer" protocol to link documents among colleagues (HTTP), and then Mark Andresson created a nice GUI interface (Mozilla) to exploit it, and within a few years, Internet use exploded 10000-fold. The ability to do what we are doing right this moment becomes an "expectation".
My fear is that, under a "content-regulated" Internet, some companies will produce a new "killer-app" that is ONLY viable (economically) by virtue of the controlled pipe-works, and folks become so enamored of it, they fail to "miss" the destructive blow to real grass-roots "people-power" that is dealt by such a move.
So, I continually seek to promote the idea that "self-publishing" will be squashed under (most) of these control regimes. You might use some cool software to produce a 2 hour animated movie in your spare time, and wish to share it with the world ... but they will never see it unless:
a. You sign away your "rights" to it to a big-media company, who will charge whatever the market will bear for access,
OR BOTH
b. You spend a few thousand bucks getting your movie "keyed" with industry-specified keys so it is recognized by everyone's view-software as "non-pirated content",
AND
c. Folks who might want to "see" your movie are willing to pay "extra-bandwidth" charges for content that was not produced by someone your ISP has "partnered with".
Countering this will not be easy. I struggle to think of a "counter-killer-app" that the public would demand, and that requires the "open-access-Internet" we have come to enjoy.
I think of "successful Internet ventures", ... and only "EBay" comes to mind. Unfortunately, EBay will work just fine under a "restricted" internet model, since most all connections are relatively "low-bandwidth", and those who actively partake of the EBay-marketplace must provide credit-worthy credentia, ensuring EBay of some revenue in the transactions.
I would like to see something akin to "Napster", where the servers were so thoroughly checked and screened to eliminate "pirated content from copyrighted works" that no media-producer/owner would have a case at shutting it down. It would serve as a "live venue" for artists who want to be recognized for works they distribute freely, where anyone could post, listen to original music or watch original film, and offer their ranking-votes for certain categories to given works (pushing them higher or lower in the listings per category.)
This is a BIG THREAT to big-media, and it has NOTHING to do with piracy-fears over their copyrighted content. It has to do with the marginalizing of their content, and the flourishing of an "open concert" forum of quality products.
By putting an invented "bandwidth squeeze" into play, they can ensure that such venues cannot form (or must pay ENORMOUSLY to become "partners" and thus receive the low-cost bandwidth rates.)
You probably pay taxes to have the streets near your home paved, well-lit, repaired, etc. Imagine that the taxing authority told you that the tax would increase 1000 percent ... UNLESS you select to drive only Ford Motor Company (or GM) automobiles upon it.
How to counter such a trend?
(Sorry if this drifted a bit from Tech-Fear, per se.)
Cheers! ____tony b____
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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I think as long as we have sources like this, we don't need to fear such things.
Paul Halsall, editor
The Internet History Sourcebooks are collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly (without advertising or excessive layout) for educational use.
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The following consist of thematically based subsets of texts entirely taken from the three main Sourcebooks listed above, along with documents from the subsidiary sourcebooks.
Travelers' Accounts
Traveler's accounts of their journeys and the lands they visit are important sources in understanding the past. As outsiders, travelers often note aspects of a culture that are too commonplace for local commentators to mention. More than this, travelers often provide some insight into how their own society understood itself in relation to other cultures.
Legal History: Ancient and Medieval
COMPREHENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHIES
HISTORICAL STUDIES WEBSITES
Guide to Byzantine and Medieval Studies on the Internet
This is organized into subject areas.
Byzantium: Byzantine Studies on the Internet
This page reflect my primary interest as a historian - the history and culture of the Byzantine Empire.
Medieval New York
A guide prepared by students in my Fordham medieval courses to the Middle Ages in New York City.
COMPREHENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHIES
The Crusades
Saints: A Research Guide
The Byzantine Saint: A Bibliography
Listening to Medieval Music [Discography]
Bibliographical Guide to Lesbian and Gay History
Bibliography of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Catholic Studies
COURSE PAGES by Paul Halsall
Western Civilization Surveys [1000 level courses]
Western Civilization I: to 1715
A website created for Fall 1999 and later for a lecture course taught at the University of North Florida. Full online lecture notes are included.
Western Civilization II: since 1715
A website created for Spring 2001 and later for a lecture course taught at the University of North Florida. Full online lecture notes are included.
European History and Historians I
A website created for a Graduate Teaching Assistant course taught Fall 2000 and later at the University of North Florida. This course parallels a typical undergradiuate survey course, but with a reading load directed at graduate students who will be teaching such courses.
European History and Historians II
A website created for a Graduate Teaching Assistant course taught Spring 2001 and later at the University of North Florida. This course parallels a typical undergradiuate survey course, but with a reading load directed at graduate students who will be teaching such courses.
Shaping of the Modern World
An entirely online course (called Core 4) in modern history taught in Sping 1998 at Brooklyn College. Full online lecture notes are included. Useful additional resources include.
Portrait Gallery -- images of individuals significant in modern history (i.e. since 1500)
Core 4 Images - a much wider array of images for use in teaching modern history.
See also an older approach: Modern History Course
A page created for my Fall 1997, and after, Modern History survey course at Fordham University, The West: From the Enlightenment to the Present.
Core Abroad in Israel and Greece
A website created for Summer 2000 for a foreign study course taught at the University of North Florida. This site includes hundred of high quality images from sites and museums.
Core Abroad in France, Spain, and Portugal
A website created for Summer 2001 for a foreign study course taught at the University of North Florida. This site includes hundred of high quality images from sites and museums.
Medieval Courses [3000 level courses]
Medieval Europe
A website created for Fall 1999 and later courses taught at the University of North Florida. Full online lectures notes are included.
See also an older approach: Medieval Studies Course or low graphics version
A page created for my Fall 1996, and after, Medieval survey course at Fordham University, The Shaping of the Medieval World.
Byzantine History
A website created for Spring 2000 and later courses taught at the University of North Florida.
The Crusades
A website created for Spring 2000 and later courses taught at the University of North Florida.
Myth, Epic, and Romance: Medieval History in Film
A website created for Summer 2001 and later courses taught at the University of North Florida.
Seminar Courses [4000/5000 level courses]
Sex and Gender in Pre-Modern Europe
A website created for a 4000 level research course taught Spring 2000 and later at the University of North Florida.
Saints, Sainthood and Society
A website created for a 4000 level research course taught Fall 2000 and later at the University of North Florida.
World History Courses
Chinese Studies Course
A page for my course in Chinese culture, taught at Brooklyn College, Fall 1995-Spring 1999
How to Cite Documents at the Internet History Sourcebooks Project
See Internet Citation Guide
The author and maintainer of this site is Paul Halsall [picture]. He can be contacted by email at halsall@fordham.edu
Please do not hesitate to mail comments or suggestions.
Curriculum vitae
The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is located at the History Department of Fordham University, New York.
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook, and other medieval components of the project, are located at the Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies.
The Internet History Sourcebooks Project [IHSP] is a world wide web project designed to provide easy access to primary sources and other teaching materials in a non-commercial environment. It was developed and is edited by Paul Halsall with the aid of numerous other contributors.
The IHSP recognizes the contribution of Fordham University, the Fordham University History Department, and the Fordham Center for Medieval Studies in providing web space and server support for the project.
The IHSP is a project independent of Fordham University. Although the IHSP seeks to follow all applicable copyright law, Fordham University is not the institutional owner, and is not liable as the result of any legal action.
Site Design: Paul Halsall
www.fordham.edu/halsall
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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Technologies can be used for good and bad. There are people who are willing to use technology to achieve their goals whether it is safe or not. When using these technologies in achieving an evil deed, many people are being harmed many ways.
It is true that relinquishing technology would benefits abuser of the technology. If a technology is widely known and understood, there would be much more ideas and precautions to prevent it from hurting themselves. Suppose a terrorist organization master the ways to controls the power grid. It would be a disaster for a state to not know what to do when the terrorist organization uses their knowledge of technology to revenge a state bringing down the power grid. It would be wise for a state to master the technology before it is used against them.
Nowadays privacy is one of the important factors in a life of a human being. Privacy rights are being used to protect criminals in some ways. These rights can prevent further investigation. It is very hard to know if your neighbour is a drug dealer or member of a terrorist group or involves in any illegal businesses because of the privacy rights. Also, the communications made available by the Internet make it easier for criminals to exchange information very secretly. Your neighbour could be a high-ranking member of a notorious terrorists group. Still he would seems normal to you, but all the things he needs to do his job is provided by the advanced technologies. The terrorist organizations have used email and messages hidden in pictures. They have used advanced algorithm to separate the secret message from a picture file. Because of the misuse of technology by few people, all the people being affected in an unfair way. There are cameras and sensor all over the places. People who obey the laws are hurt by this use of technology.
When it comes to abuse of technology, it is always focused on the present. Nowadays, when it comes to use of technology for evil deeds, most of the time it would be a currently active terrorist organizations. Al Qaida is one of the terrorist organizations that successfully use technology for their advantages. But, the issue of technology being used for unintended reasons is going to be there as long as technology exists. It would be normal people or your neighbour or a terrorist organization that are willing to abuse the technology.
That is right. We don't have much privacy nowadays. People use internet. Their computers can be accessed or hacked. People provide personal information to register. Not many of them think of protecting their privacy when they have to give up their personal information to get something they want. So, I would not be surprised if people accept a chip to be put in them. It would make their life easier but would be sacrificing mostly all privacy. The home alarm could be a simple example. Some of these alarms are directly connected to the telephone line used to call police and ambulances in case the alarm went off. These alarms fixed in your house could be used to eavesdrop. People don't think of this as losing their privacy when it has some advantage to them.
A transparent society would affect the way a human behave. With transparent society, people would not be able to be free. Their mind would always be occupied with something. People would not be able to behave normally since they know somebody is always watching. Humans have learned to keep their personal problems within their house. This is human nature where human like to spent time alone without any disruption from outside.
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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'Technologies can be used for good and they can also be used for evil' is such a true statement with current society. As discussed in the article, September 11th exhibits a situation where technology can be used for evil. But as these technologies can also be used for the good of societies it would be a waste of resources if we destroyed such tools. Also, Ray Kurzweil states 'technology has always been a double-edged sword' and this also depicts modern society. Anything from the invention of paper, which can be used to send such things as anthrax in the mail, to the invention of the airplanes, which are used as fighter planes, can constitute as 'double-edged sword'.
The Cast:
In this section, the 'zero-sum society' is mentioned as 'his own success can only come at the expense of others'. I totally disagree with this statement and do not believe that this is the cause of most technological dangers. Since a man's success can be obtained without the use of technology while harming others to get that triumph.
What are the Dangerous Technologies?
As an answer to the question 'what's the best defence against bad people using technology', Ray Kurzweil responds with 'let's keep the beneficial technologies and get rid of the dangerous ones'. This does not seem to be a very realistic solution, as certain technologies can be beneficial to one human but might be deemed dangerous by another human.
Another item that Kurzweil mentions is to create a decentralized society. He also states that this would 'create a much safer society'. Personally, I do not believe that decentralizing civilization would achieve this task. For example we would be decentralizing the technologies used by the police departments, which would be creating an unsafe world, as one department would not be able to communicate with another adjacent city police department. This might be necessary in the case where they would like to hunt for a pedophile, who has committed a crime on the border of two cities.
Privacy? What Privacy?
Also as a safe mode to prevent dangerous occurrences, Lanier suggests the idea of a 'transparent' society, where you would have everyone's eye looking at everyone else's. This idea does not seem very realistic as not everyone could watch what everyone else was doing in a 24-hour span. Gilder points out that early societies were 'transparent', but there must have been a degree to which this could have been carried out. Through personal experience, about 10 years ago, residential areas were more transparent. In the case I knew my neighbours and my neighbours knew me, and there was a level of transparency and we would know what the others were doing. In this case I could tell if my neighbours were planning a terrorist case, as if we did not see a person for one day would generate concern.
Kurzweil points out that we are 'moving away from a transparent society towards unbreakable encryption' and also states 'people who really want to keep their communications private, like terrorists, will have access to unbreakable codes'. And Lanier counters what by saying, 'a person can't live their entire life universally encrypted', which is remarkably true. As, only a limited amount of people would know this encryption and your communication would be limited to them.
All in all, humans should have a slight fear towards the rate of progression of technology, but not to the extent in which the have to live confined lives or have to live in 'transparent' societies. Also, one technology can be reckoned evil by one man but as the greatest invention by another. |
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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I strongly agree with George Gilder's view that the dangers of technology are analogous to the most dangerous part of the car - the nut behind the wheel. He states that 'The root cause of most of the technological dangers is the individual human being who does not believe in the Golden Rule -- who believes in a zero-sum society and imagines that his own success can only come at the expense of others'. Ray Kurzweil says that all technology can be used for either good or evil, 'technology has always been a double-edged sword'. But it is the person who abuses the use of this technology that introduces the evil.
This is true for current forms of technology, and as far back as the introduction of fire and the invention of the wheel as argued by Kurzweil. Despite the benefits and positive uses of fire, people had the opportunity to use fire maliciously. However, with the development of nanotechnology, whose intelligence may exceed human capacity, humans play less of a role in how the technology is used. When intelligent beings come to life, they will be able to make their own decisions and no single human can be held responsible for whatever may transpire. It is no longer safe to rely on the drivers when the cars are in control!
George Gilder also stated that 'there should not be some constraint that restricts the positive and generous forces in the universe'capitalist forces'from keeping the lead in these technologies.' I also agree that when development is encouraged to progress in the public eye, it is more easily regulated. If technological developments were stopped, it would foster secretive and underground development. Again, this is true for most current and past technologies. The example Kurzweil provided was software viruses that were expected to destroy computer networks. The fact that the knowledge of how to create viruses was common, anti-virus technology was able to develop at a faster rate. If public development of nanotechnology were to be stopped, but underground development emerged, it would cause greater harm.
However, regardless of where the nanotechnology is built, out in the open or underground, if it were to get out of control, humans might not be able to stop them. It would not matter if terrorists or mad scientists built them, they would still be out of control. And because the technology can be more intelligent than humans, any amount of information that we have about them might not be sufficient enough to understand and stop them.
Thus, we cannot continue developing this nanotechnology if there is any chance that it will get out of our control and have consequences that are undetermined by human actions. It is no longer ONLY a fear of how humans can misuse and abuse the new technology, but also how the technology might fight back.
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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I agree with the three futurists (George Glider, Ray Kurzweil, and Jaron Lanier) that with new emerging dangerous technologies, we will require smarter defenses. However, I do not think that we need to go as far as 'fostering a society that's increasingly transparent'.
'Having everyone's eyes looking at everyone else' would probably not make society any safer. Instead, it will make the people in our society more nervous and suspicious of others. As a result, the group of people who 'trust nobody and want all eyes applied in all directions' will increase. This is an negative effect on society. As Mr. Gilder pointed out, that in early (western) society: 'everybody knew what everybody else was doing, and when they didn't, they got very nervous and incinerated a witch'. This is exactly why I do not want to live in a transparent society. There were too many innocent lives lost because people were accused of being a witch. Furthermore, I am concerned that too much power to law enforcement leads to abuses of power to those in privileged positions.
I would certainly have to agree that 'humans are the problem, not so much technology'. Good examples given by Mr. Kurzweil to illustrate this point include the wheel and the harnessing of fire. Once again, I would have to agree with Mr. Kurzwei, that biotechnology and nanotechnology are 'exponentially more powerful than any technology of the past'. With the discovery of biotechnology, terrorists are able to build 'super-dangerous weapons' and use it to cause anarchy. This does not mean that we should 'relinquish or constrain' the use of technology. If our society embraces new technology then our society will be more alert of potential threats created by the very same technology.
However, regardless of where technology is built / discovered (underground or out in the open), technology can get out of hand. We maybe close to creating something that can think on its own, reproduce on its own. This new found technology may go out of control on its own and causes the extinction of the human race. Thus we have to be very careful when developing new technology. Our concern may no longer be whether the person using the technology is good or bad, but rather is the technology going to turn bad.
I am hoping that we can in the future make progress technologically without having to overly worry about the potential dangers and the destructive nature of the human race.
-CHANGO
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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There is a tendency by most of us, to speak and think as though the whole world is on exactly the same page at this point in time. We must remember that there are still vast areas in the world that are not as 'connected' as we are, not tuned in to the internet, not exploring new technologies. This is primarily because there are wide areas of the world that are still preoccupied with simpler things such as providing food and shelter for their citizens. (Though I am in the field of computers, there is a part of me that resents any discussion of spending millions to advance technologies that require so much responsibility when as human beings we are not even responsible enough to take care of other humans.) That said, because all countries are not the same, any method of protecting ourselves from technological terror will not be robust enough to completely eliminate the threat. Terrorists will be able to hide in the jungles and undeveloped areas of less technologically advanced countries until all countries are adequately connected.
'Even if the general public allows an encryption trapdoor, people who really want their communications private, like terrorists, will have access to unbreakable codes.' This disdain for anyone wishing to have their communication kept private is, in my opinion, a dangerous attitude to maintain. In the days before computers, communication between people was inherently private. Telephones and mail (real, paper mail) were not monitored by governments or law enforcement in all countries, and countries that did so were looked upon with contempt by those that saw this as a violation of a person's privacy. There was not more terrorism in these times, even though communications were kept mostly private.
Even by outlawing encryption, we can not expect eliminate the use of email as a manner of communicating messages that we don't want communicated. Terrorists will simply find other ways to convey messages, for example, using everyday words in their discussions and agreeing on a code before hand in person. No amount of email monitoring can catch such messages unless it plans to flag every email. In the event that terrorists could no longer use email (if an effective technology could actually be found), they would simply turn towards the traditional methods of communication, (phone, mail, face-t0-face meeting) leading towards a demand for widespread physical as well as electronic surveillance.
The terrorists will always find the way that is least expected and use it to expose flaws in the system. We were not afraid of shoes or toe nail clippers on airplanes until the terrorists showed us how they could be used against us. Terrorists won't need unbreakable code, they'll simply use our own language against us, and then, we'll be afraid of our own words.
Furthermore, the damage caused by technological terror will increase as new technologies develop. The example of computer viruses used by Ray Kurzweil, is a perfect example. He admits that viruses still cause billions in damage, and I add that viruses are unlikely to be eradicated in the near future. When nanotechnology becomes a fully accessible reality, he argues that the ability to safeguard it will come from the widespread knowledge of how it is created. It would be unrealistic to believe that it would not also cause damage when that knowledge is used by the wrong people. Only this time, the damage will not be computer hardware and software, but potentially, human lives. Do we really want to put ourselves at this risk?
Mr. Kurweil argued that a way to make the world less dangerous would be to use virtual communication. 'Physical violence against another person is more difficult in a virtual environment.' So, should the goal be to completely remove physical communication with others in favour of virtual communication? I can not believe that this would reduce physical violence because virtual technology can not eliminate the need and ability to meet and interact with other people personally. Don't forget, virtual communication will not lead to virtual human reproduction. The nature of humans is that at some point, to propagate the species at least, we need to interact with others.
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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'Bill Joy [in an article for Wired "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us"] was saying, Let's keep the beneficial technologies and get rid of the dangerous ones. But the same biotechnology that's going to overcome cancer and disease could also allow a terrorist to create a bioengineered pathogen.' - Ray Kurzweil
I also believe that the reverse is also true, as technology created for more honorable purposes can be misused; technology created for more negative purposes can be turned around and used to benefit society. Viruses can be used in information warfare and constant malicious behavior such as DOS attacks have been forcing systems to be more robust, which makes these systems better developed for lawful usage.
'I do want to point out that in nature, an ecosystem's defense against self-replicating dangerous entities is biodiversity. In our information systems, we simply have not been able to achieve that sense of protective diversity.' - Jaron Lanier
I agree that this may make virus creation and the creation of other malicious software more difficult I have no doubt that viruses will advance with these new systems. As information systems become more diverse, viruses will be made to adapt as they go from system to system. More specifically, as our information systems operate more like ecosystems, viruses and malicious software will operate more like the viruses and malicious influences that exist in real ecosystems. As previously mentioned, there is no deliberate solution to these problems, we must learn to stay ahead of attackers and learn to minimize the damage done by them.
'The only way for us to humanely survive dangerous technologies is to foster a society that's increasingly transparent and, ultimately, radically transparent. Having everyone's eyes looking at everyone else and not worrying so much about privacy is really the only way to have enough eyes looking around to make sure that nothing too dangerous happens.' - Jaron Lanier
I don't even consider this an option. Only now are we starting to achieve a greater respect for human's inherent right of privacy. Many consider the freedom of privacy a right that is as important as our freedom of speech. Even the slightest privacy violation by the government or private business is met with great protest when discovered. To think that the North American population could ever agree to a total loss of privacy is totally inconceivable.
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Re: Technology Fear Factor
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As Dr. Kurzweil puts it 'technology has always been a double-edged sword'. It has brought us all the great things we have today such as aircraft, automobiles, computers, sophisticated medical equipment and so on. The same technology has been used for destructive purposes in form of biochemical weapons, fighter jets, computer viruses, etc. For any given invention, there is some way to abuse it. There truly is no way to separate the destructive technologies from the noble ones. The danger then lies in the human nature, specifically, as Gilder put it 'The root cause of most of the technological dangers is the individual human being ' who believes in a zero-sum society and imagines that his own success can only come at the expense of others'.
The solution might appear to be to stop the technological advances all together in order to stop their misuse. However, this is not the case. As Gilder and other point out, if a society were to ban further technological research, the research would continue underground where it would be unregulated and unprofessional. The consequences would then be much worse when these technologies are used against an uneducated and unprepared society. Kurzweil's example of a software virus illustrates this point perfectly.
Lanier proposed diversity as the solution to some problems. I strongly doubt this idea has any practical potential. As Dr. Kurzweil mentioned, we lack technological diversity because we want standardized ways of doing things. There are hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of digital hardware components around the world. It would be impossible to make them all slightly different and work together at the same time. Furthermore, even if this were feasible the viruses, worms, etc. would simply be designed to adapt just like their biological equivalents.
Kurzweil's idea about decentralizing technologies holds some promise. By decentralization we can use inherently safer technologies to accomplish the same task as the more dangerous ones. This is not always practical however. Kurzweil used the September 11 attack as an example of a misuse of a centralized technology. In order to decentralize this system every passenger in the world would need their own airplane, large buildings would have to be demolished and the buildings would have to be fairly far apart. Perhaps in the future virtual reality would remove the need to congregate in large buildings of large cities, but humans will always prefer person-to-person contact.
Lanier suggested a solution most of us would find unimaginable:
'The only way for us to humanely survive dangerous technologies is to foster a society that's increasingly transparent and, ultimately, radically transparent. Having everyone's eyes looking at everyone else and not worrying so much about privacy is really the only way to have enough eyes looking around to make sure that nothing too dangerous happens.'
There are several reasons why this will never work to our benefit. If everyone is looking at everyone else people will resort to witch-hunts at the slightest indication of illegal activities just as they did in early society, as Gilder mentioned. Everyone would fall victim to paranoid schizophrenia as they analyzed every movement of any one of 6+ billion people on this planet. The other reason is that very few people, if any, would agree to be under constant surveillance. Most of us would like to have privacy when we step into our homes, when we talk to our friends, and in many other situations. Even if that was not a problem, there is a tremendous potential of misuse by companies for marketing purposes. Lastly, just as everyone would be watching for plans of terrorism, the terrorists would be watching for opportunities to attack. The fact that they will be caught quickly would not always be a sufficient deterrent; especially for those terrorists who believe what they are doing is just and supported by their deity.
I agree with Kurzweil, Lanier and Gilder that an 'education environment should provide an area in which ' humanistic issues are raised'. If one is given power by means of an education in any of the technologies, one should be taught how to use that power responsibly. Lanier mentioned that you could get a degree 'and nobody really knows who you are outside the classroom'. I am not completely sure what he meant by that. If he meant that educational institutions should put their students under surveillance in order to make sure that the students would not use their knowledge in harmful ways then I disagree with him for the same reasons as I mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Virtual reality is a safe technology as Kurzweil mentioned. However, I do not believe that it will necessarily make the world safer. The catastrophic attacks occur in actual reality, not virtual reality. The only way virtual reality would resolve this is if everyone in the world agreed to live in a virtual world; plugged into the Internet through a set of human-machine interfaces. This is highly unlikely to happen. People like to meet face-to-face and spend time outdoors. I know I would never agree to live completely in cyberspace.
I fully agree with Lanier that businesses should get involved in the troubled parts of the world but I do not see how that will stop misuse of technology. In fact, it would only distribute newer, more powerful technology to those parts where it has more potential to fall into the wrong hands.
Kurzweil, Lanier and Gilder have an optimistic view of the future. They see it as a place where the battle of good and evil is constantly fought and the good is always one step ahead of the evil. I cannot help but have a more pessimistic view. As the technologies get more powerful and accessible, more people will have the power to do more harm. That means that even if there are no conflicts between any two nations, a small group of terrorists could still start a third world war. Even today, if a group of terrorists were to obtain weapons of mass destruction they could obliterate a small country. What happens if they get a hold of self-replicating programmable nanobots that can enter the human blood stream? It is not unlikely that eventually this will happen; as Kurzweil et al. have assumed from the start of this discussion there will always be someone who wants to abuse technological inventions to his/her advantage. The only ray of hope I see is that humanity will evolve past this state before it is too late.
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The future is not in our hands!
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I agree with George Gilder, Ray Kurzweil, and Jaron Lanier that to protect us against dangerous technology requires 'standard diversity, decentralized systems, a transparent society, better communication between factions, and mutually beneficial collaboration of business leaders'. According to George Gilder, 'The root cause of most of the technological danger is the individual human being'. What Gilder says could be true for now, but might not hold true for the future.
Although the future is full of mystery, we can predict some of our future based on theories, and historical data. Kurzweil predicts that by the year 2019, a personal computer (PC) will have approximately the same computational ability of the human brain. The computational ability of PC will exponentially increase. It will reach a level of 1000 human brain by the year of 2029. By the year 2049, computers will claim to be conscious, where they can learn and adapt to new environments. By the year 2099, distinction between human beings and computers will become unclear.
If Kurzweil's prediction is right, machine intelligent will exceed that of any genuine human beings eventually. They will become conscious and will think like human being does. They will be able to do everything much better and faster than humans. They will also be able to accomplish tasks where no single human can do. In other words, human will become obsolete. If that trend continues to develop, it is not hard to imagine what will happen in the future. What if the machines get out of control of humans since they are much smarter than humans? Just like how humans believe that new technologies are always better, machine might think that they are better than human. Hence they might want to wipe out all the humans, just like how we throw away our old technologies as new ones become available.
Since machines will have conscious and the ability to learn. It is not hard for them to learn a system of values. In addition to that, the distinction in terms of physical appearance, psychology, consciousness and so on between humans and machines are longer clear. Each machine will have their very own desire just like human always does. If that is the case, imagine what will happen if some machines have very bad intentions such as to take over the world and terminate all human beings. Since machine will be more intelligent than humans, it will be really tough for humans to defend themselves against the machines. I guess we have all seen what happen between human and machines in the movie 'The Matrix' where the world is dominated by the machines.
Come to think of it, as a human, will you be happy or satisfied if you are working for a boss that is not as smart as you are? To be honest, I will not be happy at all if I am in that situation since it is really bad for morale. I will try my best to get rid of him/her or to get myself out of this situation. I will either quit the job or I would rather start my own business and be my own boss if I am capable enough. If human thinks like that, it will not be surprise at all that machines will think like that too. But things will be quite different in this case. Since us human have been dependent on machines ever since the beginning, the world will become chaos if all machines turn their backs on us. People will starve and freeze to death and the cities will become unlivable. Things will get even worse if the machines start to demand for control of the world from the hands of the humans.
Advance technologies are of course good for the society, but what good is it if we do not have control of our own fate? If the above scenarios are what our future will look like, how can we prevent that from happening; how can we make sure machines will not have evil minds and turn against humans; how can we make sure the machine will not outsmart human; how can we maintain control of the machines?
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