Sun Microsystems' Scientist Warns of Dangers of Accessible Technological Information

by James Yin

Many people see the extraordinary benefits technology has to offer both today and in the future. The cures for many diseases, extended lifespans, the potential end of material poverty, and eliminating manual labor. These benefits and many others can be accomplished using nanotechnology, bioengineering, and robotics. However, while the benefits are innumerable, so, too, are the dangers that accompany these technologies.

Bill Joy, co-founder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, Inc., and innovator of such programs as Java and Jini, recently addressed these risks both in an article for Wired Magazine and in an interview with TEENSPEAK. "These technologies have the potential for doing some incredible things," he told me. "We want those benefits. What we need to do is figure out how to get them without taking all of the huge risks." The risks Mr. Joy is referring to have the potential to wipe out the entire human race and change our world forever.

Unlike advancements such as nuclear technology, which is hard and expensive to obtain, information on these new technologies is quite accessible and easy to down load off of the computer. The actual blue print for the human genome has recently been published, and information on the resources needed to build robots or universal assemblers is not difficult to assimilate. Teenagers, who are very adept in understanding how a lot of this technology can work, must also be concerned about what could happen if this information got into the wrong hands. As future scientists, they need to heed Mr. Joy's warning about the potential dangers that they may confront. The problem does not lie in the technology itself, but how the human race may handle it. "We have to look at and responsibly think about each science," Mr. Joy cautions.