"Why Doesn't The Future Need Us" response

Joy's thesis is "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies- robotics,genetic engineering, and nanotech- are threatening to make humans an endangered species". Humans can avoid being unnecessary by becoming more advanced themselves. Humans can get more training and create less computerized systems to do their work. If humans do the work themselves, humans will not become unnecessary. Institutions are contributing to the inevitability of humans becoming unnecessary in that everything is becoming computerized. For example, schools are using computers to take attendance, whereas in the past, attendance was handwritten. The more computers are used, the more advancements are going to be made on computers, the more computers will become the more popular choice.



Aldous Huxley would respond to Joy's article agreeing that technolgy is indeed getting out of hand. Since Huxley illustrated the idea of technology advancement to the highest extreme, his ideas might have been taken from the same sources that Joy got his from.



One rhetorical strategy that Joy uses is introducing ideas and stating his opinion on them. He leaves room for readers to ponder his ideas and make an opinion. Joy also uses examples and quotes from books to enhance his argument.

I believe that Joy is a fear monger. His arguments are to set fear in readers' minds. Joy wants everyone to fear human extinction.

Joy uses a lot of personfication when speaking on robots and other machines. He gives them human characteristics to show that the machines will take over all human jobs and functions; leaving humans with nothing.

In the Brave New World, technology is used to control society. In essence, Joy's article connects to the Brave New World in that technology is crossing the line.