By the time we're downloaded it'll all be over

By JO-MARIE BROWN

The human race will be at the mercy of machines in future, says one of the world's top computer scientists.

Bill Joy, co-founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, believes our worst sci-fi nightmares could be just around the corner.

He fears that humans may become so dependent on robots that they will come to accept all their decisions and ultimately find themselves superfluous - nothing more than domestic pets.

Mr Joy helped to invent some of the key 20th century technological innovations, such as JavaScript.

While many of the ideas depicted in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey remain fantasy, Mr Joy has speculated on what the future holds in an interview with CBS television in the United States to mark the start of the new year.

The interview echoed views he outlined in an article in the magazine Wired last year, entitled "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us."

The future troubles Mr Joy because he believes humans' quest to invent bigger, brighter and smarter machines will come back to haunt us.

He predicts that by 2030 an intelligent robot could be built, and from there "it is only a small step to a robot species - to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself."

The ability of robots and other engineered organisms to replicate poses great danger to the human race.

"A bomb is blown up only once, but one robot can become many, and quickly get out of control."

The dream of immortality could also lead humans down the path of extinction, as robotic technology will allow us to download our consciousness into a machine.

"We are beginning to see intimations of this in the implantation of computer devices into the human body ... but if we are downloaded into our technology, what are the chances that we will thereafter be ourselves or even be human?"

Scientists of the 21st century are "on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil," says Mr Joy, who fears the development of a "white plague" that could see diseases purposely unleashed to strike selected groups. Advancements in genetic engineering could see new bacteria and plants wipe out existing species and nanotechnology - minuscule devices - could potentially destroy our biosphere.

Mr Joy believes the only way to prevent such catastrophes is to slow down our quest for knowledge.

"The only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge."