I’ve read two recent pieces that attack the tech giants—Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Microsoft—in various ways. “Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend,” and “Ashamed to work in Silicon Valley: how techies became the new bankers.”

Continue reading Are Google and Facebook Evil? →

I recently read an article in The Atlantic by Tristan Harris, a former Product Manager at Google who studies the ethics of how the design of technology influences people’s psychology and behavior. Continue reading Summary of “How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds — from a Magician and Google’s Design Ethicist” →

My last post discussed public opposition to “Building a Better Human With Science.” People are generally skeptical of both futuristic technologies as well the scientists developing them. It also turns out that future technologies are disproportionately opposed by religious persons, and most accepted by the least religious. Continue reading Building a Better Human With Science Revisited →

ABSTRACT

In his well-known piece, “Why the future doesn’t need us,” Bill Joy argues that 21^st century technologies—genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology (GNR)—will extinguish human beings as we now know them, a prospect he finds deeply disturbing. I find his arguments deeply flawed and critique each of them in turn.

(Published in ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, Volume 32: Issue 6, June 2003.) Continue reading Critique of Bill Joy’s “Why the future doesn’t need us” →

In his recent article, “Why Techno-Optimism Is Dangerous,” the philosopher Nicholas Agar argues that we not should pursue radical human enhancement Continue reading The Supposed Dangers of Techno-Optimism →