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has also often been the case . For the last four or five years, one could
pick up almost any copy of
Wired
magazine and hear about how human
nature is being transformed. I don't mean just human abilities to com–
municate, but human nature itself. And there was some sense that in the
creation of the World Wide Web what we'd be creating was some world–
sized organism that now follows its own laws and is going to create a
new form of humanity with this incredible nexus of machines and
people interacting in new ways. I don't believe this is the case. I agree
with you, and I think that one of the strong cases for a dystopian vision,
as far as technology is concerned, is that technology increases the abil–
ity of human nature to do its worst. This is the downside of technolog–
ical advance. But again, I don't know that Ray is making that a central
point of his argument: the argument is really that, regardless of what we
say, this kind of technology is going to be changing in this way, creating
a challenge for us as social beings to try to figure out what to do.
Ray
Kurzweil :
I will admit to being an optimist and, of course, it's said
that an optimist is someone who, when he falls from a ten-story build–
ing, is heard to say as he passes the fourth floor, "So far things have gone
well." And let me say that, so far, I think things have gone well, but not
without much pain. This century has seen several enormous catastrophes
and a great deal of destruction made feasible by different forms of tech–
nology. On the other hand, I don't know how many people would want
to go back a few hundred years to the very difficult, grueling, brutish
lives-short lives, disease-filled lives-that people then lived. Technol–
ogy has enabled far greater wealth and control over our destiny; a sig–
nificant fraction of the population have jobs they actually get some
gratification from, something that a very small percentage had a hundred
years ago. So whether technology is a good thing or bad thing is an
entirely different issue. So far, I would say the consensus is that techno–
logical progress, if I may use the word "progress," is positive, has very
strong support, and many benefits are gained from it. But the dangers are
certainly salient and could ultimately be overwhelming.
Ken Welch :
There's no doubt we've had a technological explosion over
the last fifty or sixty years, but there has also been a population explo–
sion, and I think the world's population has doubled in the last forty
years. Some of the correlations are obvious. For instance, improved
medical care helps people live longer, but what other correlations do
you see? Do you see either of those factors limiting the other as the num–
ber of people increases so dramatically?
