Dear technology, please stop making me dependent upon you. Thank you, once-powerful human being.

I don’t understand why scientists would make advancements in technology to the point we would have thinking machines in our world. If technologists were able to confine the future thinking robots to scientific labs where they could help in the discovery of the cure for cancer, for example, thinking robots would not terrify me as much. What puzzles me mostly about the controversial topic of eugenics, robotics and nanotechnology is the idea that humans would allow technology to become intelligently superior to us. Additionally, we are already allowing technology to leave some people that have no hopeful professional options in life jobless and guess what? Even more hopeless.

In relation to robotics: If human beings have the highest capabilities of thinking on earth,
why would we ever allow machines to surpass us? If there is the possibility of making
us less capable, less intelligent and less powerful, we should do everything, scientists
especially, to prevent this from occurring. 

In relation to genetically engineered humans: If our society correctly
implements modified
genes into fetuses, scientists could prevent new coming babies from having the
genes that contract terrible diseases. It would be so simple, effective and probably one of the
best inventions in science to remoce cancer and diabetes genes, if only it were accessible to
everyone. However, there is the frightening chance that science and government will allow 
for parents to request every type of gene to be modified in order to produce “designer
babies”, then our world will be threatened by a possible take–over by these genetically
modified superior beings. Not only that, but this treatment will never be available to the lower
class, which means inequality will boost and opportunities of success for the poorer
population will diminish to an even smaller chance than the one that exists now. 

In relation to machines taking over many low-wage jobs: It’s happening. In grocery
stores, parking lots, subway stations, airport check in desks and subways even… Machines
have already started taking away the jobs of a large number of people that rely on low
paying jobs that do not require any sort of superior academic skills or diplomas.

Perhaps I am thinking too much into the future or something too “sci-fi movie

ish” that actually won’t happen. Yet it is a threat notorious technology experts such as Bill
Joy and Theodore Kaczynski agree will happen if we are not careful. It is imperative that
influential and powerful institutions like governments and GNR (Genetics, Nanotechnology,
Robotics) companies come up with agreements that will allow for the advancement of these
incredibly beneficial technologies without implementing their destructiveness that can harm
many sectors of our society in the long term.

“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” Bill Joy, Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us

Sounds scary? I confess it made me a little more relieved. As the author points out earlier,
“[scientists and technicians] are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily
turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power”. But we
would become so dependent on machines that they would “naturally” overpower us. Due to
this threat of dependency and consequent take-over of machines, government and GNR
companies should impose policies that would reduce the number of powerful technologies
launched into the market yearly, in order to reduce our dependency on machines for literally
every aspect of life. Furthermore, they should come to agreements that companies will stop
producing technologies that facilitate or replace every chore and task; that companies will
give humans some space to solve their problems without the help of technology, so that we
can still put our brains to work to prevent this machine take-over. There will certainly be the
issue of profit for the companies, since they’ll be limiting their production in some way, but
since they are aware of the extreme dependency that their inventions are imposing upon the
human race and the threat machines pose to human capability, thinking, and effort, they
should be moral enough to want to prevent this too. The whole issue with the possible take
over of machines is the fact that we are becoming lazier and lazier each year to “manually”
perform our tasks, which occurs because of technology companies’ yearly inventions of
machines that substitute every type of manual labor. If any type of powerful institution
succeeded in limiting these inventions, not only in quantity but also in level of facilitation that
it provides, we could delay this take-over for quite a lot of years.

"The GenRich - who account for 10 percent of the American population - all carry synthetic genes... that were created in the laboratory ...All aspects of the economy, the media, the entertainment industry, and the knowledge industry are controlled by members of the GenRich class...Naturals work as low-paid service providers or as labourers, and their children go to public schools... the GenRich class and the Natural class will become...entirely separate species with no ability to cross-breed, and with as much romantic interest in each other as a current human would have for a chimpanzee", Lee Silver, Re-making Eden.

I had hope in relation to eugenics, but let's face it: only the upper class will be
benefitted by the utopian idea of genetic engineering. Lee Silver's claim that the future
genetically enhanced upper class will exercise even more control over the world and will
widen the gap of the rich and the poor is probably very accurate. I thought inequality would
shrink in future years but it just bewilders me to realize technology can destroy that potential
solution. Before I even researched about genetic modification, I did not think it was unethical
to remove disease and disorder genes from embryos since it would prevent so many 
sicknesses and burdens from taking place. But after pondering upon the social impacts that 
the implementation of human genetic engineering would bring, I could not help but aspire for
some sort of worldwide regulation that made this new technology available to everyone. I
can myself that will not happen, but is it too much if I ask that future parents that decide to
enhance their future babies not alter their personalities or intelligence? There is enough lack
of ethics in human genetic engineering already. 

The sad reality about the impacts upon the lower class with the future implementation 
of genetic engineering is not the only factor that is already depriving people of jobs,
unfortunately. It is unbelievable how machines are taking over the low-wage job sector of 
society in so many different departments of service. In one of the supermarkets in the East 
Village, there are usually two cashiers in the check-out desks out of the available five or six.
The other supermarket customers line up in the self-service check out machines, which work
surprisingly well. It's only a question of time until most of the supermarket's clerks are 
replaced by machines. Independent and technological service is probably much less costly 
then maintaining paying workers that are equally efficient compared to the machines. In 
many airports, the check-in desks are slowly being replaced by....machines! I've tried them a 
few times and it's ridiculously quick! Since the check-in desk employees are still there, 
but in much smaller qualities, there are usually no lines to use these machines, and the 
employees that lurk around the travelers serve only to guide us where to place our suitcases. 
These machines are so useful and efficient already that the only change that will occur in the 
next years is the application of more machines and firing of more workers. The social 
consequences of the implementation of machines to substitute low-educated workers will
increasingly concern governments who will find it hard to maintain these workers employed
in our future technologically dominated economic system. An increasingly amount of jobless 
people will arise, since professions requiring low schooling and no machines will decrease 
significantly in the years to come. Combine this "promising" fact for low class people 
together with future designer humans who will control all the main industries in the world and
we leave to them a hopeless world in the name of technology.