Module 12

Jayden Nyman

IST 1100

Module 12

            From module 12 I read an article written by Bill Joy for the Wired Magazine. The title was “Why the future doesn’t need us.” He talked about many things that we could do to make our kind extinct. There are certain things that Joy discussed that could be used to our advantage, but there were also things that could be used to our downfall. Joy talked a lot about nanotechnology, genetics, and robotics. Those topics he stated could all be used to our own advantage if dealt with in the correct way.

            Bill Joy talked about how nanotechnology could be used for the good dealing with medicine, but on the other hand people would use it for bad and good. Anything that can be used for good things with medicine can be altered into a bad form. These could lead to things like new illegal drugs on the market. But if people were smart nanotechnology could be as a major benefit to medicine.

            Genetics seem to be abused by people in scary ways. The really scary part about genetics is that it can be used to make biological weapons. What does that mean? Well, that means that whether it is used by the good or the bad, anyone and any country could make a biological weapon using genetics. This could means either good or bad, because it could be used by us a defense mechanism, while it could be used by our enemies for terrorism. He used the Atom Bomb as the example of a way that we were able to use genetics as a benefit the United States. I feel as it will spread to the people whom we do not want having the access too. If we used genetics in a way that other countries and enemies could not copy and duplicate then I would say it would be a great thing. If we can’t, then I suggest we don’t try and do not let the ideas and information slip into the wrong hands.

            Bill Joy really interested me with the robotics topic. He talked about how humans would want to use robotics as a way to prolong the human life span. This is pretty crazy and scary, because robotics could be used to pretty much takeover the human race, and especially if robotics was used for making artificial intelligence. This could takeover the human race, but really only if we allowed it to get to that point. Robotics could be used as an awesome tool if we decided to use it in the correct way. It would make life a lot easier to maintain if we could have that technology available to us, but in the same sense it could make people lazier than they already are becoming in our world today.

            All of these topics could be used as a way for greater good, or a way to completely destroy the world as we know it today. The simplest way to put it is that we will both succeed with nanotechnology, genetics, and robotics and create a world that is so much different than what we know, or we will end up ruining the world as we know it. So much thought goes into these articles coving topics that have huge impacts on our society. Hopefully we will manage to find a way to incorporate the good benefits of nanotechnology, robotics, and genetics into our lifestyles. While we want to fight for the good affects, we have to push away the bad outcomes from happening at the same time in order to achieve success.