Ted Kaczynski has died

There is a section "The Future" which talks about Artificial Intelligence (AI):

The author postulates that if computer scientists develop intelligent machines that can do all things better than humans, all work will be done by machines and no human effort will be necessary.

There are two possibilities: either the machines make all their own decisions without human oversight or human control over the machines is retained.

173. If machines _are_ allowed to make all their own decisions, it is impossible to predict the outcome and the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. The author suggests that society may become so dependent on machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of their decisions, eventually leading to a stage where machines are in effective control and turning them off would amount to suicide.

174. If human control over machines is _retained_, the average person may have control over certain private machines, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite. The elite will have greater control over the masses and because human work will no longer be necessary, the masses will be superfluous.

If computer scientists do not succeed in developing artificial intelligence and human work remains necessary, machines will still take care of simpler tasks resulting in an increasing surplus of human workers at lower levels of ability. Employed workers will face ever-increasing demands and will need more training, ability and conformity. Their tasks will be increasingly specialized and out of touch with the real world.

The author envisions scenarios where machines take over most important work while humans are kept busy with relatively unimportant work in the service industries, which the author finds contemptible.

The author acknowledges that the outlined scenarios do not exhaust all possibilities but indicates that if the industrial-technological system survives the next 40 to 100 years, individuals will be more dependent on large organizations and their physical and mental qualities will be engineered into them.

Technology is creating a new physical and social environment for humans that is radically different from the environments to which natural selection has adapted the human race and humans will either be adjusted to this new environment by being artificially re-engineered or through natural selection.

179. The author concludes that it would be better to dump the whole system and take the consequences.

(That was all summarized by ChatGPT. I have removed concluding sentences from some paragraphs containing deeply pessimistic motives of insubordination, enslavement, and extermination)

Thanks for posting. Far too much support and excusing of a deranged murderer in these comments.

TBF, we incarcerate people like him partially because benefit of the doubt no longer applies for some crimes.

Reasonable doubt shifts based on past behavior. The parable of them scorpion is retold for a reason.

There are only 3 victims to narrow down.

edit: Only one of 3 victims was killed in his home:

> In 1994, Burson-Marsteller executive Thomas J. Mosser was killed after opening a mail bomb sent to his home in New Jersey. In a letter to The New York Times, Kaczynski wrote he had sent the bomb because of Mosser's work repairing the public image of Exxon after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

A lot of comments here talk about how terrible Kaczynski’s actions were, and I agree with them. I do wonder, though, at what point does such behavior qualify one as mentally insane? He seems fairly insane to me, and I’m not sure whether we should see him as an evil person with true agency or someone with a mental illness.