Product Details

• Region: All Regions
• Studio: Charlie Rose
• DVD Release Date: September 18, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000IMVPJK
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #273,095 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Bill Joy, chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, discusses an article he wrote for the April edition of Wired magazine, entitled Why the Future Doesn't Need Us, in which he asks the question, "are future technologies a threat to our existence?'' and challenges scientists to face the realities of answering it. Later, a conversation with Daniel Barenboim, pianist and music director of the Chicago Symphony.

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5.0 out of 5 stars The Bill Joy segment, November 26, 2007

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Joy may not be witty and he certainly does not smile a lot , but what he says makes great sense. He warns about the dangers presented by future developments in Robotics, Genetic Engineering, Nanotechnology. He explains how the 'democratization of evil' may be enabled by the new technologies. Weirdos and haters anywhere might use it to create great human disasters. He is troubled by Ray Kurzweil's vision of Intelligent Machines coming into being- this when he says the rule is the stronger species in contact with a weaker one usually eliminates it. He says it is because he is an optimist and believes that there will be tremendous developments in the coming centuries in the technologies he is speaking about that he is so worried. He essentially is not ordering a moratorium on anything but suggesting that mankind stop and think of what it is doing. He knows that this suggestion is not likely to be taken. The world now seems to be in or out of the hands of a runaway rush of technological development.
I believe Joy is correct in pointing out great dangers. There are many more than he elaborates in this interview. Martin Rees in "Our Last Century?" elaborates more. It seems with each new technology there come new possiblities for disasters.
As I write this the world is on the verge of a possible nuclear Iran, widespread nuclear proliferation, massive transfer of wealth due to energy prices to totalitarian states. Joy that is might have elaborated on the great danger caused by technology's failure to produce a reasonable alternative to fossil fuels.
In any case this was an instructive show with an important social thinker.