Why the future doesn't need us is an article by Bill Joy, Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems. In this article, he argues (quoting the sub title) that "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species." The article was published in the April 2000 issue of Wired Magazine and was inspired, in part, by the Manifesto of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Joy warns:

"The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as they did, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions."

The essay has been compared by The Times to Albert Einstein's 1939 letter to then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning him of the possibility of the Nazis inventing the atomic bomb.

The full text is available on-line.

External link

• Why the future doesn't need us, Wired, April 2000