1A: First Place

There is no denying that technology dominates modern life. The cell phone is quite

literally everywhere, capable of tracking its owner’s movements. If one ever looked at Google

Chrome’s Auto fill settings, it is quite unsettling how much information is known about a person.

Name, phone number, address, email. Add a social security number or a credit card and it is an

identity thief’s playhouse. Yet as smart as these machines are, they are far from intelligent. All of

the power Siri has was given to it by human beings through some clever programming. Today is

still a long way off from either a Mr. Data or a terminator. White AI may be a very frightening

prospect, it is much less horrifying than modern humans equipped with today’s technology with

a malicious intent.

As Weiner states humans “may not know, until too late, when to turn it off”. In case of

Jurassic Park, the off button should have been pressed before the dinosaurs were made. In the

book, Mr. Hammond’s park runs almost entirely on 1990’s computers trying to contain creatures

that have not taken breath in 65 million years. As the computer system begins to show problems

and the main programmer goes AWOL all of the dinosaurs get loose leading to the deaths of

several people including the park’s creator himself. The novel proves the point of “just because

one can doesn’t mean one should.” In 1990 computers just were not capable of running a system

so large. Indeed the internet barely existed. For example, the Mars Pathfinder website circa 1997

contained six links and required one to go through a menu page (nota drop-down menu like that

of the modern age, an actual page just to get where one wants to go) to visit any given part of the

site. It shall be interesting to see how such a park fares on modern technology when Jurassic

World is finally released.

When Norbert Wiener wrote “Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation”

many of today’s “intelligent machines” did not exist. Wiener did not have dial up let alone

LTE’s blowing fast speeds. It would be interesting to get his opinion now, especially on the war

machine. In the 1960’s the country was basically off of Truman and Eisenhower’s push for

nuclear weapons, which, while very frightening and lethal, could not be launched without human

input. Now, Unmanned Aerial Systems such as the Predator can hover above an area for days

waiting for an enemy to come out. What happens when such a weapon gets hacked and falls into

the wrong hands? Even if a terrorist cell does not manage to bring down a military UAS, civilian

drones are fairly easy to make, strap a bomb to, and send off to cause destruction. As shown by

the recent gyropter landing on the Capitol lawn, the nation’s capitol city has some serious

airspace issues to resolve. A drone is much smaller than any helicopter or airplane and multi-

rotor designs are capable of flying as slow as any bird. In such a drone strike, there really can be

no way of knowing who to blame until someone tracks it, and there lies the terror.

Weiner talks of a “’push button’ nuclear war” which sounds strikingly similar to the

movie War Games. In the movie, a boy hacks into a war simulator missile array. While any

missile he shoots is hypothetical, the machine’s missile is all to real. Eventually the machine is

disarmed by forcing it into an infinite loop during a game of tic-tac-toe, the implications of such

a machine and its power to “do anything to win a nominal victory even a the cost of human

survival “are worrisome if the military does not pull the plug or indeed have no plug to pull when

the time comes.”

As frightening a machine like that is, it is still unintelligent. It may be able to “learn” in a

sense that it can find the simplest solution, the computer that could threaten humanity would

have to be able to think and change its programming to fit its ideals. Such machines are present

in the television series “Star Trek: the Next Generation.” In the show, Commander Data, an

android, is seen being able to think and at times come up with his own system of beliefs. Yet he

is not fully human in appearance. However, during one episode the crew finds a duplicate of

Data called lore who’s programming is slightly different allowing him to behave like a human.

This frightens the colonist with which he lived so he was dismantled and Data was made. This

may be the undoing of any computer wanting to rule the world. Human beings reach a point that

if a computer or robot is too humanlike, in either appearance or behavior, they begin to fear it.

However, what if people want to be controlled and assimilated into a

cyborg/technological society. The cellular phone, while almost always with people is not

connected to them. Yet society is moving in that direction. The Apple Watch is the first step,

having much of one’s phone’s functions right there on their wrist, but even it can be taken off.

What happens when technology becomes a parasite of sorts, feeding off the body’s energy to

give one texts directly to the brain. Possibly the more important question is what happens if the

server that controls such technology is taken over by a man or machine and an army of stolen

bodies is created? While the 1960’s atom bomb was deadly, at least it killed people instead of

forcing them to watch their bodies move without their command.

In conclusion, while nightmares like AI do cause people to think, they are just that,

nightmares. As the saying goes “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Technology is only

dangerous when it falls into the wrong human hands. In the year 2015 2001: A Space Odyssey’s

HAL 9000 is still just a thing of cinema (unfortunately, so are the spaceships). There is no

technology today that is capable of killing off humanity all by itself, and through the careful

work of future generations who know when to press the off switch, there never will be.

2A: First Place

Over thousands of years, humans have experienced several stages of evolution, from the

Neanderthals to the Cro-Magnons to the Homo sapiens we are today. However, humans have

evolved in more ways than just physically. From the most basic rock tools of the “cavemen” to

the mass automation of the Industrial revolution, humans have been using technology to evolve

into more sophisticated beings capable of accomplishing more and thinking at higher levels.

Today, technology has evolved to a point where machines can basically think much faster and

more comprehensively than humans. This has frightened some people, who envision a future of

oppressive robot overlords, but if we have this wonderful resource of technology than can think,

basically, better, than us then there is no reason we shouldn’t take advantage of it. If humans are

cautious in monitoring the capabilities of advanced technology and artificial intelligence, we can

use it to evolve into the most sophisticated humans yet.

The great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov imagines a future in which humans merge

with machines in his short story “The Last Question.” The story presents a series of scenes, each

set in a different future time period, in which humans ask their artificially intelligent

supercomputer, Multivac, the question, “Can entropy be reversed?” or, in other words, “Can we

prevent the universe from ultimately destroying itself?” Each time the question is asked,

Multivac has the same answer, “INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL RESPONSE.”

Over time, the humans in the story evolve alongside Multivac, both human and machine

becoming more technologically advanced. Finally, in the last scene of the short story, both

humans and Multivac are just consciences floating around in space. The humans ask the question

one last time and get the same response before merging with Multivac. Now alone in the

universe and possessing all the consciences of mankind, Multivac watches the stars blink away

one by one until the universe is nothing more. At last, the answer to “the last question” comes to

it, and it proclaims into the nothingness, “Let there be light!” This short story is an extreme,

fantastical version of human evolution, in which, after merging with machines, humans become

God. Of course, realistically this wouldn't happen, but as machines and humans grow closer

together, humans will become more sophisticated and capable of higher levels of thinking, just

like Homo sapiens are capable of higher levels of thinking than Neanderthals.

When most people think of humans and machines becoming one, they think of humans

becoming more and more like machines, not machines becoming like humans. However, this is

the case in the Oscar-nominated film, Her. In the film, the main character is a man who lives in a

future society dominated by technology in which artificial intelligence plays a huge role in daily

life. Each person has an earpiece that they have in at all times, with an artificially intelligent

operating system that can answer any questions they have, tell them their schedules, or perform

any number of tasks, much like the “personal assistants” built into smartphones today, such as

iPhone’s Siri. The main character of the movies purchases a new operating system, the most

advanced one yet, and as he talks and listens to “her” (the operating system) all day, he begins to

grow very close to her and think of her as another person. At this point in the movie, this man

starts to sound a little mentally unstable, but then the viewer starts to get the sense that the OS

genuinely likes the man back, like the machine is actually capable of feelings. Although the

movie ends with the operating system having to leave, Her provides an alternative example of

how humans and machines could evolve together, as it only makes sense that as humans evolve,

so will machines.

However, as the aphorism says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” It’s

important that humans are cautious in developing newer, better technology. Technological giants

like Bill Gates and Elon Musk have already issued warnings as to the power of artificial

intelligence. It’s important that humans don't blindly plunge ahead, thinking only of what can be

done, not what should be done. In this area, we can learn from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In

the novel, the protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, is completely consumed with the desire to

discover the secret of life. He works for months, not sleeping for day at a time, experimenting,

recording data, and coming up with new ideas. He doesn't think about what will happen once he

actually discovers the secret or what ramifications might accompany the creation of life. He

thinks of only the great service he’s providing humanity. When he finally succeeds in creating

life, he is horrified at the grotesqueness of the monster he’s created. At this point, though, it’s too

late for him to turn back. The monster, angry with his creator for making him such a wretched

creature, ruins Victor’s life by killing his loved ones, and eventually Victor dies in the pursuit of

his monster. The story of Victor provides an important lesson for the people developing artificial

intelligence today: even with the best intentions, things could go wrong. However, this doesn't

mean people shouldn't continue to experiment, learn, and evolve. We should absolutely continue

developing newer and better technology, just cautiously.

Humans are driven to become better, faster, stronger versions of ourselves, and

technology can help us do that. We’ve already naturally evolved from “cavemen” to modern

humans, and we can advance even further with the help of technology. Technology advances so

rapidly, and we do not know how far it can take us. Who knows, the next step in our evolution

could even be a race of techno sapiens.

3A: First Place

A Medical Professional’s Guide to Losing Life

The first step in becoming a true medical professional is believing that you will change

lives, that you are a warrior for life, and, yes, that you will never lose a patient under your caring

hands. The older doctors will scoff at you and your bright optimism. They see the light in the

young professional’s eyes, and with faces scarred by time and smirks sculpted by sorrow, they

will doubt your optimism. As a beginner in the infinite world of maladies, you will think that

your job is to fight death. Do anything and everything in your power to fight that cursed

destroyer of worlds, usher of nightmares, creator of pain and suffering. You were taught to use

any weapon available to you, that is of course, if the patient signs off on all the legalities. Scalpel

in hand, sterilized armor on, and a full cavalry of medical equipment behind you, you ride off

courageously into the battle against death in all its forms. You were taught to fight with

everything available to you, even if that battle lies inside another human’s body. This is

medicine, and in medicine, the end justifies the means. Stuff that body with morphine, poke

constellations in that work of dying art if it means breathing that beautiful breath of life for

another second. Go ahead and prescribe all the chemicals mined out of the corpse of the earth,

and go ahead and fill the stomach with a concoction of who-knows-what. You are a warrior after

all, and since the end justifies the means, you should do whatever if takes to drive the destroyer

of worlds from this single human body. But then, what if “the end” really is the end? What if

there is no tomorrow for your patient, and the hourglass is finally up? The string is cut, the last

petal fallen and disheveled. What now?

This is medical school: how to fix a broken body. How to artificially poison natural

poison. How to stop God for a few more days, years, decades. This is not medical school: how to

stay locked in a gaze with a dying man. How to wipe tears from the brimming eyes of a child

going nowhere. How to appreciate the impending darkness of a setting sun, how to smile at a

flower slowly un-blooming, how to partner dance in a burning room. The second step to

becoming a medical professional is accepting that you must learn to tend to a dead person. It’s

impromptu. It’s freestyle, it’s a sudden face-off with death, and no one taught you how to play

this game. The person lying in bed is yours. It’s a somebody who was a someone, and this body

is yours to harvest until death reaps it. How to? You will be terribly confused with failure and

choked up by fear; after all, as your patient’s hand shoots out before him, reaching into a

distance your eyes weren’t taught to see. Maybe you should shut the curtains to keep the light

out, or maybe your patient wants a glimmer of a last radiance. You wouldn’t know. The patient’s

hand in the air is now slowly gripping onto something. Could it be he is holding onto life? Is he

being handed back all of his memories? Is he holding onto God’s coattail? Should you hold his

hand, to have him have that last human connection before falling into the arms of cursed death?

You wouldn’t know. The MCAT never asked you this type of question. At the last second, you

do what you were taught to do. Use your weapons and fight death. You use every tool available

to you, and suddenly you remember that time in your childhood when you shook your dead

goldfish violently in its bag to only realize it had been dead and there was nothing left to do

about it. Death is death is death is death. Your patient’s hand is no longer out. It let go of

something, you don’t know what.

The medical amateur should then come to the conclusion that the third step to becoming a

true medical professional is letting people die. Let death reap what life has sown. From the

beginning, you had known that death is only a part of life, so why is it so hard to let a person die

in peace? Why had you shaken the poor little goldfish, why had you sent waves of electricity

through a body already gone. You let somebody die. The medical professional will then shut the

curtains, page somebody for clean up, remove his gloves disappointedly, all to the tune of a flat

line like in those medical dramas. You remember how that patient felt under your gloved hands.

Leathery, wrinkled skin or flesh, taught skin still ready to grow and be used. A shuddering breath

like a machine or a smooth, last exhale. Eyes that glimmered in the hope of rising again or eyes

that glimmered under the intense operating bulbs. Did they go quietly into the night or did they

rage against the dying of the light? Every memory is fresh on you like black, wet ink. You know

now, thought, that eventually that cadaver will only be a black tattoo in the darkest, foggiest

crevices of your mind, indistinguishable from the rest of the dead. You realize it is just another

body in the ground. Dust is to dust.

Many times, the medical professional will leave empty handed. No victory to take home.

The only thing the professional will come home with is questions. Questions and questions and

questions. Why didn’t I leave it alone? What is my job, my duty? Why didn’t medical school

teach me about death? You laugh at yourself. Why did I pay so much for medical school when I

wasn’t even taught to value you the process of life? The eternal sunrise and sunset of life…why

hadn’t you been taught to value the beauty of age? You can fancy the oldest wines and watch in

awe as somewhere in the world a hurricane rips through a town, but you still have yet to

appreciate the controlled, chaotic beauty of destruction. You know that out there, there are still

many health care providers who choose to fight death even when the battle is beyond ugly and

the battleground already worn and ready to crumble. You with that you had known since the

beginning to just let life and death play it’s game and simply let yourself and your patient be

pawns. Until the end of your career you will regret shaking that goldfish and you will never

know what that man was reaching for in the distance. Death is death is death is death and

sometimes it is absolutely beautiful.

4A: First Place

A Beautiful Ending

Humans have always had an uneasy relationship with death. Everyone understands, at

some level, that they will one-day experience it, but very few dwell on it. Medical science has

allowed modern people to live much longer, healthier lives, but has yet to banish the specter of

death completely. Throughout literature, history, and even current events, men and women have

struggled with the concept of death and its implications, both for themselves and for society as a

whole.

A preoccupation with death, and the afterlife that was believed to follow, can be traced

back to the earliest civilizations of antiquity. Ancient Egyptian culture was centered around

preparing for the afterlife, and the pharaohs went to great lengths to be ready for their eternal

demise. The pyramids, a direct result of this fixation with death, sometimes took decades to

build, and the process of mummification, intended to preserve the ruler’s body for use in the

afterlife, was costly and extraordinarily complicated. Whole segments of the Egyptian economy

were based entirely on the process of death, ensuring it maintained a central cultural niche.

The Egyptian cultural fascination with death stood in stark contrast with the attitudes held

by either northern neighbor, the Greeks. Personifying death as the god Hades, the Greeks saw

death as something to be feared and avoided, not extravagantly prepared for. Though Hades

occupied a central role as the oldest and one of the most powerful of the gods, there were not

temples build in his name. The lord of the underworld was not even considered one of the

Olympians highest of the gods, precisely because of the nature of his sphere of influence. Greeks

prepared for their afterlife by attempting acts of bravery and heroism, in hopes that even in death

they would avoid Hades’ influence in the field of Elysium. The aversion to death occupied such

a central role in Greek thought that many of their myths feature the descent of the hero into the

underworld, only to return in victory to the world above.

In contrast to the attitudes of celebratory preparation or grim acceptance which

characterized the ancients’ views on death, those in later centuries were more inclined to attempt

to avoid it. Juan Ponce DeLeon lost his wife in Florida during the Spanish colonization while

search for the mythical “Fountain of Youth” that would grant him immortality. Even in the

1800’s this idea of “cheating” death still held, popular appeal, as demonstrated in Oscar Wide’s

story “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” In the work, a young gentleman finds a way to seal his soul

in a self-portrait, so that it will age in his place. The story the focuses on the slide into utter

depravity caused by Dorian’s agelessness, which is only broken when he looks at the picture of

himself, reversing the curse. Though Gray does indeed “cheat” death, the effects are far from

permanent.

Every today, society demonstrates the influence of the past in our own handling of death.

Though no one today spends decades constructing a pyramid, the passing of a loved one still

celebrated with funerals and mark with gravestones. Though few live in fear of Hades, the idea

of “eternal life” remains a central event of many religions, and, though few try to “cheat” death,

most people attempt to sustain their life as long as possible.

Attitudes about death vary wildly today, as evidenced by the ongoing debate over

“assisted suicide” or the “right to die,” both of which represent politically charged terms for

medical euthanasia, or the end of a terminal patients’ life according to their own wishes.

Supporters see this as granting a dignified, peaceful death to those with no hope of recovery,

while those against the practice claim it devalues human life, and is medically unethical. A

handful of states allow the practice, and several high-profile cases have surfaced questioning the

constitutionality on the ban on it in others states. Despite this, it continues to remain

controversial, among not only the public, but the doctors, patients, and families who it directly

affects.

Death is, and likely always will be, a part of being human. As Atul Gawande writes, “it is

the natural order of things.” Death is, however, the only part of life that it is impossible to

prepare for. Though everyone will experience it at some point, no on living can say for certain

what the experience of dying is try like. However, what is undeniable is that in many cases, death

has been extended from an event to a process, spanning weeks, months and sometimes years. In

the attempt to preserve life as long as possible, it seems evident that society has neglected to

make that life worth living. No one wants to spend their final moments hooked up to machines,

unable to move or speak. As Oscar Wilde showed, death can only be cheated for so long, and to

spend all of one’s time engaged in such a futile effort is at best useless, and at worst a waste of

the time that is left.

Everyone deserves the right to die with dignity, and that doesn’t have to mean physician-

assisted suicide. What it means is giving patients the option to accept their deaths. Death with

dignity does not require celebration, fear, avoidance, or intention. It requires an acceptance of

what is to come, and a desire to make the most of the time one has left. Medicine has through

research, study, experiment, and study provided society with the means to better lives. Now it’s

time for medicine to turn the page, and provide the means to better, and more dignified deaths. It

has been said that the life of each person is a story. It’s in the hands of society to provide that

story the opportunity for a beautiful ending.

5A: First Place

Don’t Duck, Just Roll

A fist slices through the air and lands on its intended target, making full impact. Pow. A

second fist follows suit, yet the blunt force is diminished. Thud. In the latter instance, the

recipient of the hit loosens his body and does not resist the punch, thus softening its force.

Boxing is a sport in which hits are inescapable; however, it is the competitors’ choice on how to

respond to them. Acknowledging the upcoming blows and preparing for them, as opposed to

stubbornly insisting that they can be avoided, allows the boxer to roll with the punches and

lessen his pain. Much like boxing matches, life is peppered with challenges or “punches,”

wherein the most prominent one is the issue of death. Largely due to medical advancements and

improved living conditions, human life has increased to an average of seventy-seven years for

men and seventy-nine years for women. Still, it is not enough. Society lauds longevity, glorifying

ideals such as the illustrious Fountain of Youth or vampirism. Despite the appreciation for living

longer, prolonging life does not necessarily equate to peace. Rather, extending the life of a sick

individual or an elderly invalid may lengthen their suffering. Fighting against the ultimate hit in

life-death-often results in misery. As a result, comfort can be found in accepting the inevitably

death and not fighting against it in the final moments of life.

Consider, for instance, the violent life and peaceful death of Gregor Samsa in Franz

Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Gregor, who has unexpectedly transformed into a lumbering, adult-

sized insect, faces an entirely new lifestyle. Where his family once adored him and depended on

him financially, they now cringe away. He is exiled to his room with the door firmly locked and

the furniture removed. This is a fugitive “punch” in his life, as he is visibly shunned by his loved

ones. As his purpose of being the sole family provider has expired, he has lost their respect. In

fact, as he ventures out of his room, he is greeted with a terrified mother and spiteful father. The

father hurls an apple at Gregor, and the apple lodges itself between scales on his back. It festers

and infects him. This physical hit is one that Gregor can neither avoid nor overlook. He

acknowledges that his usefulness in life, being the family breadwinner, has been fulfilled and he

can do no more. With that recognition of him merely being a burden to family, Gregor

deliberately allows the apple to continue rotting in his flesh. He knows death will come if he

does not fight against the damage from the fruit, but he no longer wishes to prolong life. Living

would be suffering, as he would be unwelcome in his own home and unable to venture into the

outside world. In his case, death is a hit that is well received. Dying and leaving his family less

stress constitutes a success, and that achievement gives Gregor comfort in his final moments.

Aside from a literary construct, the final stages of Vincent Van Gogh’s life also

exemplify the peace that is found by succumbing to death. Van Gogh lived a tumultuous life,

starving for his passion and suffering for his ambitions. He pursued painting recklessly, and

continued to create art even when it brought him no fame or wealth. Unable to pay taxes, he lay

in prison for weeks. Upon returning home, he returned to painting. It was a fervent obsession, an

inescapable need for him to paint. Time and time again, he faced “punches” in the form of

governmental disapproval and a lack of buyers. His craft was largely for himself; still, he was

aged and ill, he finally sold one painting. The only work from his oeuvre that would be sold

during his lifetime was “The Red Vineyard.” Wholly satisfied with finding appreciation for his

masterpiece, minor as the appreciation may have been, he continued with his art. He had no

funds to pay for a doctor, but he had no interest either. The experimental medicine of his era

comprised of various herbs and, most notably, using leeches to bleed out the sickness from

patients. Thus, an attempt to extend his life would have been painful and unnecessary. Van Gogh

was accomplished after selling a painting, and so he was able to die peacefully without

interference.

Along a similar vein is the relatively easy death of the elderly Robert A. Chesebough, the

inventor of Vaseline, Chesebough lived a fairly simple life. His original intent had merely been

to make enough profit to live comfortably without financial concerns. As such, after making a

fortune, he retired to a secluded home with his family. He sought solace from the cheering public

and sold his business. Chesebough aged well, with no notable illnesses. He had minor concerns,

such as memory loss and shortness of breath, but nothing requiring heavy medication. Still, his

fortune would have enabled him to seek out highly lauded doctors to extend his life if he so

wished. Despite the capability to do so, Chesebough had no interest in fighting for more living

time than what he was allotted. The hit of death was merely a phase of life for him, and as he

lived in his secluded family, home he avoided doctors. Away from the public eye and separated

from all people outside of his immediate family, he passed away in peace and comfort.

In short, while it may ostensibly be more beneficial to fight for a longer life, in reality,

death may bring comfort. While some accept it simply to make the final moments of life easier,

others happily embrace it as an end to their suffering. Either way, as they acknowledge the

inevitable nature of death, they free themselves from the pain of striving for a longer life. Thus,

by “rolling” with “punch” of death, they make it easier on themselves and find peace in their

final moments.

6A: First Place

To Dream of Electric Sheep

We live in a time when human life – or, at least, human usefulness – is actively going the

way of the horse and buggy, or the print newspaper, or the slide rule, or the landline telephone,

or any of a million other obsolete and outdated pieces of the past that have been replaced by their

better-functioning, more efficient, and often cheaper counterparts. The idea of humanity as a

whole being replaced by something newer, shinier, and objectively better is nothing new – just

ask summer blockbusters and bestselling novels everywhere, from I, Robot to “Terminator.” But

until very recently, the concept has been somewhat abstract, shrouded in dystopian cynicism and

mid-century sci-fi optimism alike. The robot overlords – or servants, housekeepers, friendly

helpers, but in the end it all amounts to the same thing – of the 20th century were just figments of

the collective imagination, charming dreams or shivery nightmares that were too far off to be

anything more than fiction. But in the 21st century, they’re not just conceivable – they’re already

here.

It starts with the unappealing jobs. Very, very few children have ever actually grown up

wanting to work in the sanitation industry. Of course, the posts of garbage collector and sewer

plant operator get filled anyway, but it’s surely not because the people who fill them wouldn't

prefer something else, some dream job or childhood fantasy at the very least. Given the choice,

almost any rational person would choose almost any other job. And why shouldn't they? Why

not let robots – which can’t get tired, can’t unionize, can’t smell the garbage or human waste or

what-have-you day in and day out and get more and more tired of it – do the dirty work instead?

Industries like agriculture and construction are already doing it; the newest, shiniest tractors and

backhoes make the jobs of their operators quite a bit easier, which is to say quite a bit more

automated, than they used to be. And the human cost of was is on its way out, too – the military

has been on the front end of the automation curve for years. Drone strikes may kill civilians, but

they don't kill drone operators; the different in the death toll for sitting in a booth remote-

controlling a drone is much, much lower versus death toll for climbing in a F-16 and actually

flying into combat airspace is astronomical. Of course, there are still those that do climb into the

F-16 and do the flying, but they’re slowly being replaced. After all, it only makes sense, both

ethically and economically: not only do drones save the lives of pilots, but they save the cost of

having to train them, outfit them, and maintain them, too.

Once the disgusting or dangerous jobs are out of the way, it’s on to the mundane ones.

Jobs that require pushing paper, or pushing buttons, or pushing oneself to stay awake while

staring at same computer screen for eight hours at a time… The robots and programs and

algorithms of today can do most of those, not to mention the robots and programs and algorithms

of five, then or twenty years from now. Secretaries and administrative assistants become

unnecessary if the phone can answer itself and take its own messages and the paperwork can

analyze itself and then file itself by any given criteria. Research assistants become more and

more obsolete the smarter Google gets. Accountants disappear because not only can computers

do math, but they can do it smarter and faster and with fewer errors than their human

counterparts. Certainly most of the world will want real, flesh-and-blood humans supervising

robotic or computerized workers doing many of these activities, at least at first – imagine the

panic if the computer at the doctor’s office misfiles a patient’s paperwork and no one catches it.

But that trial period wont last forever; once the bugs are fixed and the machines don't make

errors and don’t make errors and don’t make errors, even a human supervisor will seem like too

much investment in meat – especially if they’re more likely to mess up than their artificial

charges.

From there, it's a relatively simple leap from jobs to “professions.” After all, most of the

time doctors and lawyers aren’t doing anything more exciting than your average 9-to-5 paper

pusher, and if that part of their jobs can be automated – if we can eliminate the paperwork, and

the prescriptions, and the research, and the endless hours of tracking down case histories and

legal minutiae – then why not the rest? No person, no matter how brilliant, can rival an entire

medical database, and one computer can potentially do the job of a whole team of lawyers. For

that matter, people make the errors in architecture and engineering and design that cost people

their time, their money, and sometimes even their lives. Computers are far, far less likely to mess

up the conversion from meters to feet that will send a multibillion-dollar piece of NASA

technology hurtling into the surface of Mars rather than coming to a gentle landing and then

cruising around sending back important data. If human error can be eliminated – if we can have

smarter doctors, fairer lawyers, more flawless engineers – then surely it should. People will lose

their jobs, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few; if lives can be saved by

replacing people with computers, the weighing of pros to cons seems obvious.

So it goes that human beings are swiftly becoming outdated, and replacing ourselves with

a newer model is something that is surely well-intentioned. If it can make our lives safer,

smoother, easier – give us more time to spend with our loved ones, reduce the threats of war and

famine and disease, eliminate, to some degree, pain and suffering – then of course we should do

it. Of course it’s the right choice. It’s so tempting, and so much like just another repetition of our

past: when we invented the car, we retired the horse. And horses haven’t disappeared, by any

means; certainly their population is far less than what it once was, but if anything, that's good.

They aren’t overgrazing anymore; their numbers are sustainable, but pleasantly low, far from

overpopulation. Perhaps the same could be said for humans. Perhaps the reduced need for fleshy

workers will also reduce the rapidly skyrocketing numbers of people being shoved into

increasingly cramped conditions. Not only that, but if robots run the world, maybe people can’t

destroy it. If protecting the environment is a logical investment in the future, and human greed is

the only thing stopping us from seeing it, then the problem is solved, because for all that they can

do, robots can’t experience greed.

Of course, they can’t experience compassion, either. Or morality. Or fear, sorrow, or joy.

A computer can understand, interpret, and respond to stimuli: if a child is crying, she is upset,

possibly injured, tired, or hungry, and therefore I should attempt to treat her injury, put her to

sleep, or feed her. But it can’t possess empathy: that child is crying, and that makes me feel bad,

so I should figure out what’s wrong and help her. For all of the things that we’ve been able to

teach robots and computers to do – for all of the things that make them superior – there’s one

thing that remains just out of reach: true consciousness. It’s been commonly referred to as

“artificial intelligence,” though that’s something of a misnomer. We can make intelligent

machines, machines that think and learn and make their own decisions. We’ve been able ot do

that for a while now, and we’re only getting better. The trick is making machines that can feel. It

can certainly be done; what is the human brain, after all, but a feeling computer? But whatever

God or nature or pure luck managed, human beings have yet to recreate. Without some degree of

sentience, can we ever really trust them to operate with our best interests at heart? Without some

form of heart or soul, can we trust our entire lives to something so different from us, and yet so

much the same?

Pure logic is no basis for an entire worldview, and certainly not when combined with

power and superior intelligence. Of course, a lack of emotionality can avert disaster; it can also

incite it. If the human mind is about to be replaced by the newest edition – and it is, or, in many

cases, it already has been – then we as a species have a duty to ensure that the human heart is

replaced too. Should we fail to do so, we may see more of the “robot overlord” nightmare and

less of the “friendly helper” dream in our future. The Wizard of Oz was certainly right about at

least this one thing: our tin men need hearts. And we emotional, reckless, illogical human beings

are the only ones who can provide them.