My Idea of Why the Future doesn't need us

My Idea of Why the Future doesn’t need us

          I will base my last blog assignment on Bill Joy’s excerpt from “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”. In reading this short story I found the author to use a style of writing that tries persuades people to share his point of view. I personally am not really convinced, although it does present a few valid concerns about the advancement of technology.

          His story is seen as the glass is half empty point of view, or what can go wrong will. I call this the “blue bird of happiness” theory. His choice of the title alone can make one easily see that his vision of the future is dismal at best.

Bill Joy is worried that robotics will ultimately be the undoing of mankind. That our own technology will destroy us, that we are the hand of our own destruction.

The article does a fairly commendable job in presenting compelling images. Like the concept of true artificial life, robotic style. He goes so far as to suggest that we as humans will ultimately be intertwined with robots. Such imagery entices one’s emotions, especially when it comes to people’s fear of the unknown. Man fears what man can’t comprehend or understand.  However, due to the lack of evidence and his tendency to jump to such drastic doomsday predictions without carefully considering the current state of technology, this article has a hard time convincing me, since I am  someone who doesn’t already share his own expressed opinion.

Overall, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” manages to present its topic in an interesting and attention-grabbing way. I was amused by his taunting of robots taking over humans, but the persuasiveness of the article in my opinion remains fairly weak and questionable, due to the road technology is taking. It sounds a little too much like the plot of “Terminator” to me.