Lysek: Manifesto
1. We should have colonized or be colonizing another planet.
Climate change is of the utmost concern among scientists and world leaders today, and for good reason. We humans love our planet, and we want to keep it alive as long as we can. That's fine at all, but this is only a band aid. It's like having a leaky basketball and plugging the holes in it so it remains functional. For us, it is time to find a new basketball. Earth will survive for awhile, but with it's population growing by the day and not many people dying to offset the growth, we are quickly running out of worthwhile space. That is why we should look towards the stars for our new home. Establishing colonies on other planets would ease the strain we put on the Earth, and it would vastly improve our knowledge and power as collective. We could find new resources, build new technologies, and even find out where life came from by visiting these planets and studying. There are serious risks and it would be an expensive ordeal, but it is better than the price we will have to pay if the Earth stops being sustainable and we have nowhere to go.
2. We should be able to kill whatever robots we create.
I understand robots are only going to be bigger and bigger parts of our lives, it seems inevitable at this point. However, if you want to convince me to be cool having robots around my house and work, you better give me a laundry list of ways to dispose of it if things go haywire. I've seen too many movies where humans underestimate the strength and processing power of our creations, resulting in us losing a war because we didn't account for pessimistic scenarios. Between military drones, automated cars that are killing people, and robots hesitating when asked if they like humans, there are enough red flags to have me worried about our future. If we are gonna go forward with developing A.I. well past our intelligence level, we better have some good fail safes in place, because otherwise we will be a forgotten species.
3. We should remodel the education system.
Have you ever considered cutting your lawn with a pair of scissors? Of course not, because lawn mowers are much more fast and reliable. So why are schools using the sit-spit-forget method of teaching when computers are so much better at it? Computers don't forget anything and can hold tons of information, while a human's memory is short and the amount of information we can retain is limited. If we don't want a computer to take our jobs, we need to redo the school system. Scrap the standardized testing and focus more on fostering creativity, critical thinking, and ethics skills. Robots cannot do any of these things (at least for now). These skills is what is important in the workforce today anyway, and most companies spend the first few weeks introducing you to their lingo and practices, and your job from that point onward is to improve the production of your company in some way. That requires lots of improvising, critical thinking, and creativity depending on the job. This is how humans can stay ahead of the A.I. movement without missing out on the benefits of robotics.
4. We should not go automated with cars.
Some things should be reserved for humans, and driving cars is one of them. Think about your phone, it is normally reliable, but occasionally it glitches out and apps crash or the screen stops working temporarily. You have to wait a few seconds or restart the phone, but its no big deal. Now picture the same thing happening to a car traveling at 80 miles per hour. The stakes are much higher, and any small mistake can result in crashes, injuries, and death. For them to be an upgrade over our current car situation, they would literally have to be perfect at driving, but they are not. Two people have already died in accidents. If they are not perfect drivers, who is benefitting? We aren't really improving anything, and if we aren't improving anything and removing the human element from driving, it isn't worth doing in my book.
5. We should not use genetic modification to enhance children.
The last thing the world needs is another gap between people and another reason to hate one another, but we seem hell bent on doing so with genetic modification. Genetic modification to prevent disease is understandable, and if somebody is rich enough to get the procedure done I would not be mad. However, if somebody changed their child's genetic code to be more attractive, athletic, and smarter, I would be pissed. How is anybody supposed to compete with a smarter breed of human. It is essentially creating a new race of people, one where they have every desirable physical and mental trait possible, leaving normal humans in the dust. It is the equivalent of making a human terminator: a seemingly unbeatable entity that probably has an agenda of some sort because it is still human. With humans like these, how are we supposed to keep them out of power. Our democracy works right now because everyone is on an equal plane (to some extent), but by altering the gene code to advance humans, it puts them on a higher plane than natural humans. It would create a "master race", which is exactly what Hitler wanted, which should tell you all you should know. This is a prime example of just because we could does not mean we should.
6. We should find a way to make the terms of agreement easier to read and understandable.
Facebook's main defense in their data mining case is that it says in the terms of agreement that our data is used by other companies, but it does not mention Cambridge Analytica at all, the company in question. This uncertainty is going to make this a messy case, but it doesn't have to be this way. The terms of agreement we sign should not have to be this long and complicated. Companies make it this long so we get fed up and don't read it and we submit our information to them. The system needs to be streamlined, transparent, and easier to read. Why do we need a lawyer's vocabulary to understand what our phone is doing. Just use bullet points, simple words, and simple explanations. It would hold companies accountable, as they cannot hide behind their vague and complex diction, and it would help the consumer make a wiser decision when signing the agreement.