Lesson 12

Summarize what GNR is and why Joy fears its three components, What is your personal reaction to the author's fear? Are they justified or not? What should we do?

My wish is that we should strive for the reality given in the Engines of Creation, Drexler's utopiam while keeping an educated eye on the white and black sides of every invention. This is not the first time that the human race has found itself on the new frontier of technologyand information. We have stood at this threshold many times before. We have always faced these challenges with the same human emotions and desires for power, wealth and greed. as we strive to make the workd that we live in a better place, there is always a danger of what a person with an ill intention can do with it. We have learned that we are very good and change. we have learned through this class that we can not build up the walls to protect ourselves. we saw how Walmart through the use of computers, built an efficient, prosperous company. They became the king of the hill for a time, we learned that things where over looked for a time, while everyones attention was focused on their growth and efficently they became oblivious to the human rights side of their company. Through the laws we chose to live with in to protect our freedoms they are being put in check.
GNR is the self- replication of genetic engineering. I am not willing to take the leap from a colds ability to evolve and become immune to antibiotics, to a computer that will evolve, which means grow by a means of its own. to the point it wants to take over the earth, unbeknown to humans? not only do we need to make robots conscious but we have to give them spirit.
He worries that knowledge is a weapon that we wield against ourselves. that we will fall victim to our own technologies, that we will do so by not acknowledging the possibilities. I see why he has these fears, he is forgetting to give the human race any credit, however, I believe that we are capable of perserving the structure of life as we understand it while constantly changing the comfort of our lives.