Wired (magazine)

After establishing his reputation as a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, in 2000 Bill Joy published a landmark cover story for Wired Magazine called Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us. In it he raises a number of questions about the ethical dimensions and unintended consequences of technology and his concern that, along the accelerating path of technological progress, people such as Ray Kurzweil are underestimating enormously the probability of disaster for humanity. Joy’s conclusion at the time was: “The only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge.” Following his article there was a huge outcry against Joy alleging that he was a Luddite, ideologically connected to Samuel Butler and even Ted Kaczynski. In this TED video, shot a number of years after his [...]