Genetic Engineering, Nanotech, and Robotics-  The sensation aroused by Bill Joy’s “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” is a direct result of the use of sound logic.  Bill Joy effectively takes a well-supported premise and generates a reasonable conclusion.  The premises that Joy uses tend to be historical and often times personal (see Ethos).  These arguments tied in with emotion (see Pathos) allow Joy to successfully convey his belief that the future of mankind is at risk.

Most of Joy’s premises are a result of historical analysis and thus appear valid.  Since Joy is attempting to show the destructive power of technology his premises are carefully selected historical events pertaining to weapons.  Joy states:

Certainly, the technologies underlying the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) - were powerful, and the weapons an enormous threat. But building nuclear weapons required, at least for a time, access to both rare - indeed, effectively unavailable - raw materials and highly protected information; biological and chemical weapons programs also tended to require large-scale activities.

The world has witnessed the widespread damage caused by the use of technology as a weapon.  It is undisputable that the use of WMD and NBC have resulted many deaths.  The connection is then made that the future may hold many more deaths as a result of advancements in science and technology.  Joy argues that the future will be even more dangerous.  Again, looking at history this is reasonable.  Weapons of mass destruction clearly have the ability to annihilate far more than the previous generation of technologies.  Therefore, the next generation will do the same because it follows a cycle typical of an arms race; one generation of weapons must be able to outperform the previous generations.

In respects to computers, the rapid development of new lines of products has increased exponentially.  In a 20-year span of time computers have gone from being large and expensive to being a common article in a private home.  This is the premise that Joy uses to validate the statistical data that would show “the coming advances in computing power seem to make it possible by 2030. And once an intelligent robot exists, it is only a small step to a robot species - to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself.”  This conclusion is logical given the extent of resources allocated to artificial intelligence.
 History has also established one of the key premises that Joy uses to make his conclusion, that of our outlook on technology.  Humans tend to behave with “instant familiarity and unquestioning acceptance” toward technology.  People tend to see technology has a solution to modern problems.  It has not been until the advent of genetic technologies, nanotechnologies, and robotics that technology can be extremely destructive.  For example:

Our overuse of antibiotics has led to what may be the biggest such problem so far: the emergence of antibiotic-resistant and much more dangerous bacteria. Similar things happened when attempts to eliminate malarial mosquitoes using DDT caused them to acquire DDT resistance; malarial parasites likewise acquired multi-drug-resistant genes.

Joy’s logic throughout his article is sound.  He also uses concrete examples from history and authoritative sources to further validate his arguments.  For this reason, Joy successfully has justified his conclusion that the future may not include human beings.