wired | First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in
developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human
beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by
vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be
necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be
permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or
else human control over the machines might be retained.
If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can’t
make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to
guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of
the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be
argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over
all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the
human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that
the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the
human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such
dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to
accept all of the machines’ decisions. As society and the problems that
face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more
intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for
them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results
than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the
decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that
human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that
stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to
just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them
that turning them off would amount to suicide.
On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines
may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over
certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal
computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the
hands of a tiny elite – just as it is today, but with two differences.
Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the
masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses
will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is
ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If
they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or
biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of
humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the
elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the
role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to
it that everyone’s physical needs are satisfied, that all children are
raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a
wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become
dissatisfied undergoes “treatment” to cure his “problem.” Of course,
life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or
psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power
process or make them “sublimate” their drive for power into some
harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a
society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been
reduced to the status of domestic animals.1
In the book, you don’t discover until you turn the page that the author of this passage is Theodore Kaczynski – the Unabomber.
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