“The Promise and Challenge of Technology in the 21st Century”
Bill Joy
Co-founder, Chief Scientist and Corporate Executive Officer
Sun Microsystems
Present at the Creation: Part IV
Remarks by Jeffrey H. Lynford
Third Annual Lynford Lecture
October 12, 2000
Chairman Catell, President Chang, Mr. Joy, Professors Chudnovsky, Trustees, Faculty, Honored
Guests and Fellow Students:
It is at this time in our annual proceedings that I am permitted to share the podium and make a few observations about our efforts here.
In his essay entitled "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us," Bill Joy asks, "Will human kind survive the potentially self-replicating GNR technologies?" The initials GNR represent the genetic, nano, and robotic technologies of the 21st century. He challenges today' s scientists and engineers with the question, "Can they ignore the applications and future ramifications of their work?" What are their moral responsibilities to society and themselves? Grave and significant questions.
These questions, asked by a man of Bill Joy's stature and mainstream reputation, have legitimized an important dialogue. This is a dialogue that is extending beyond technological optimists and pessimists. It is capturing the attention of thinking people everywhere. Interestingly, one small part of this dialogue can be found on the Internet, which he helped to pioneer, in the "Rant & Raves" chat room of Wired.com. I invite all of you to read, if not participate, in this non-stop virtual national town meeting.
As a student of history and public affairs I would like to share with you my anecdotal contribution to this dialogue. In 1969, when I was a graduate student at Princeton University, my mentor, Professor Marion J. Levy, Jr., presented to his students, his "Eleven Laws of the Disillusionment of the True Liberal." These were a mix of wisdom and humor that have stayed with me throughout my adult life. Since disillusionment comes to all of us, at one time or another, I would like to quote Professor Levy's fourth law:
Always pray that your opposition be wicked. In wickedness there is a strong strain towards rationality. Therefore there is always the possibility, in theory, of handling the wicked by outthinking them.
And his third corollary to this fourth law:
Any discovery is more likely to be exploited by the wicked, than applied by the virtuous.
How do these thoughts relate to our dialogue here today? As far as we know, all technologies available since the dawn oftime, have been conceived of, and developed by, humans. If these technologies have been exploited by the wicked, then it is the ethics of the users that we must question. For 30 years, since I have left the ivy-covered halls of academia, I have believed in the likelihood of human rationality triumphing over irrationality; in humankind's ability to curb the profound abuses created by our own technologies. Mr. Joy now challenges my cherished expectations. The perils and prospects accompanying the GNR technologies undermine my long held faith in the ascendancy of good over evil.
For Mr. Joy has envisioned a "brave new world," where technology would be melded with humans to create machines without values and scruples. GNR technologies would replace biological supremacy. Human constructs relating to right versus wrong could become obsolete, a chilling prospect. There would be no demand for philosophers to discuss the Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle or occasions for theologians to preach the Ten Commandments. There would be no need for diplomacy, justice, mercy or other forms of higher moral development for settling disputes among humans.
Mr. Joy's own response to this dilemma is voluntary relinquishment, which some may characterize as a sophisticated form of individual intellectual abstinence. Will this recommendation work? It is difficult to predict. For human curiosity, a primordial drive which powers our search for new technologies, is an urge we have had from pre-biblical times, and it appears that this curiosity may be as hard to tame, as human procreation and human greed.
In conclusion, Mr. Joy, thank you for being with us today. Your appearance continues an IMAS tradition of presenting leading thinkers who are also technological practitioners. May your efforts provoke contemplative responses to the issues you have raised; perhaps a student in this auditorium will develop a new paradigm to confront the perils that may loom before us all.
I would now like to ask David and Gregory Chudnovsky to join me at the podium and ask all of you to join us in a round of welcoming applause for our guest lecturer, Mr. Bill Joy.