Once Upon a Time

Carbon-based life begat silicon-based life.

If we’re gonna create a robot species, we oughta take a vote first.

That's Bill Joy, chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, as quoted in a Steve Reich video piece "Three Tales: Dolly" from the fascinating collection OHM+: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music, which I'm reviewing for Skyscraper. Inspired--or maybe horrified--by Ray Kurzweil's speculative non/fiction, Joy wrote a widely-read article back at the turn of the century (doesn't it still sound weird to say that?) for Wired called "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us."

I don’t think robots are going to take over from us because there isn’t going to an an "us." Because we are starting to bring technology into our bodies.

- Rod Brooks, Panasonic Professor of Robotics and Director of MIT's CSAIL program

Me, I agree with Kent Brockman, who said, "I, for one, welcome our robot overlords."

Full transcript of Reich's piece here (PDF).