If we think of machines for their Utilitarian contribution to society, then perhaps at some level of usefulness a machine-life can be as valuable as a human life, in that context we assume that machines themselves have no want or right to live. However, it is interesting to note what John Stuart Mill, a leading proponent of utilitarianism, had to say about technological advancement; "It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being." This argument widely discredits the popular reason for advancement of technology and the basis of Luddites' appeal to labor, but why else might they argue against or for the advancement of technology?
Luddism was not an isolated cultural phenomenon; the movement has grown since the Industrial Revolution and been integrated with other ideologies. As with Gandhi, Neo-Luddites have argued for labor-increasing policies that laid waste to emphasis on technological gain. Still, all use technology in some shape or form.
The inescapability of its construct is constricting and confounding at worst, yet is comparable in its power to nature itself. As humankind grows, so does technology, toward what many dystopian authors have predicted in a frightening way. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World set the stage for a powerful artificial government that goes as far as to create people in labs in batches determined to have the most enviable traits for a specific niche in society.
Perhaps what is more frightening than this power is how it parallels a modern paradigm of economic classes. Today, people are divided in resources, poor and rich, on a seemingly unfair basis. In this book, the people that are running society selfishly maintain this paradigm while straying from modern morals of equality of opportunity and the overall betterment of human society. Still, as the basic direction we seem to be headed, we should look for ways to make advancement more accommodating.
In Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey, technology has progressed to a state that is believably futuristic, based around the evolution of mankind and the development of technology. Viewing discovery through a universal lens, the movie compares people to animals, machines, and cosmos to come to wider grips with reality. In the movie, Kubrick depicts robots as a manifestation of human thought, and one of which we ultimately have control.
HAL, the supercomputer personality of the spaceship on which much of the movie is based, is able to communicate in the most base of human emotions, though when he starts asking questions is diagnosed as having a computer error. Fearing for his life, HAL kills off almost everyone on the ship, resembling a human psychopath. When finally Dave, a human fearing for his own life and wanting vengeance shuts down HAL, the process slowly pressures the computer to die, begging for its life and finally singing itself into quiet.
Having perhaps the most personality of any character in the movie, HAL brings the question "What does it mean to be human?" If technology truly mirrors man, as we are attempting to design it, then there is much more at stake in taking a stand for or against technology than just whether it is useful. There is a moral problem in simply using as resources that which is the child of human thought.
