The new Luddite challenge

This is the introduction to a series of articles I want to write about an interesting, and important, dilemma we face. What follows is an excerpt from a text whose author I will reveal in the second article of this series.

The new Luddite challenge

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.

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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.

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On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained.

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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.

For the record, I am no Luddite, quite the opposite, but this text unsettled me when I read it for the first time.

I hope this text is introductory enough and gives you an idea of what we are going to discuss in the coming articles.