Recognizing religious mythology in visions of new technology

摘要

Bill Joy, Chief scientist for Sun Microsystems, agrees that coming advances in computing power seem to make it possible that an intelligent being will be built by the year 2030, and, that shortly thereafter, we will gradually replace ourselves with our robotic technology, achieving near immortality by downloading our consciousness. But Joy asks, if we are downloaded into our technology, what are the chances that we will thereafter be ourselves, or even human? Given the seriousness of the threat, Joy wonders why the development of new technologies proceeds without hesitation. The article addresses Joy's question "why?" by using religious mythology as an analytical tool of narrative interpretation.