Bill Joy wrote about this back in 2000. The essay was titled 'Why the Future Doesn't Need Us' and offers a very (in my mind) depressing attitude of the future.
One of his worries is that whatever positive things we can do with new technology are vastly outnumbered by the negative things we can do with them. Bad actors can be few and far but still destroy the world.
It's interesting that Bill is worried about genetic engineering, nanotechnology and robotics. Sam specifically calls out AI and synthetic biology.
There's a lot of recurring themes between these two articles, but both propose similar solutions: Proceed cautiously.
One of his worries is that whatever positive things we can do with new technology are vastly outnumbered by the negative things we can do with them. Bad actors can be few and far but still destroy the world.
It's interesting that Bill is worried about genetic engineering, nanotechnology and robotics. Sam specifically calls out AI and synthetic biology.
There's a lot of recurring themes between these two articles, but both propose similar solutions: Proceed cautiously.
http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html