The Problem of Technology Part 1

A week or two ago I was waiting to see a movie and while waiting decided to engage in one of my favorite vices-arcade shooting games.  To make a long story shorter, I was playing a game based on the Terminator movies.  Like so many science fiction plots, machines originally created to serve us turn on their human creators and a War Against the Machines must be waged to preserve what little is left of humanity.

I could go on for a long while about different science fiction stories built off this theme but I trust my reader knows how popular this theme is of late.  The bigger question is why.  Why in an age of vast technological advancements and increasing reliance on them do we so fear it?  Huge Nibley once pointed out how depressing science fiction was because it had become a genre of warning, of dystopia.  What is science fiction trying to warn us about?

To understand the Victory of the Robot we must first know our enemy.  Robots are perfection-perfect in specialization, obedience, efficiency and order.  Without weakness, emotion, they are the answer to everything.   In a mindless pursuit of perfection they eventually recognize humans as the cancer-and eliminate us.

Yet the Robots are not really to blame here, we are.  After all, the Robots do not rise suddenly, humanity gradually surrenders willingly until they rise as a natural result.  The Robots replace humanity only after humans have replaced themselves with Robots.

Now to step out of science fiction for a moment.  Artificial Intelligence maybe the new kid on the block but the War Against the Machines has been waged for centuries.  The Luddites were a 19th century movement of textile workers who were being pushed out of their jobs by mechanized looms of the Industrial Revolution.  The Luddites "protested" by what they called "collective bargaining by riot"-namely smashing the looms replacing them.  Here we have a real war, the Luddites even fought the British Army on a few occasions, fought in the name of humanity against the Machines.

Back to science fiction:  The more recent Battlestar Galactica series pushes the genre norms by posing a question usually taken for granted.  In the pilot episode the machines, (aka "Toasters") launch a nuclear holocaust against humanity combined with a computer virus against their military.  The result is that only an outdated decommissioned warship and some civilian spacecraft survive to fight a retreat across the universe.

The episode contains an address given by the Captain of the Galactica in which he poses the question:  Does Humanity deserve to survive?  This is the first question that must be answered before continuing.  So I ask my reader: Is there anything special about humanity that merits our survival?