Promise and peril—the deeply intertwined poles of 21st century technology

摘要

The article focuses on sensation created due to warning by Bill Joy, principal developer of Java programming language, regarding dangers from the self-replicating technologies. Joy warned that self-replicating entities created through nanotechnology needs to be contend. People will also encounter robot, whose artificial intelligence will rival and ultimately exceed human intelligence. These dangers are there, but Joy called for relinquishing the pursuit of knowledge and the advance of technology in broad field. Relinquishing technological advancement would be economic suicide for individuals, companies and nations. Most importantly, abandonment of broad areas of technology will only push them underground where development would continue unimpeded by ethics and regulation. Their ethics as responsible technologists should include such fine-grained relinquishment, among other professional ethical guidelines. Other protections will need to include oversight by regulatory bodies, the development of technology-specific immune responses, as well as computer-assisted surveillance by law enforcement organizations. Computer viruses will presents another problem for human being. But the danger from computer viruses is less intense to people. While self-replicating entities will present lethal danger for people.