In April, 2000, Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy published an article in Wired magazine entitled, "Why the future doesn’t need us." Joy argues that emerging technologies such as robotics, nanoscience, and artificial intelligence threaten to spiral out of control and endanger humanity. As we slip deeper into dependence on machines, he says, we will rely on them to make every decision for us, and existence without them might become impossible. Eventually, machines may decide that existence with us is unnecessary. When we can’t live without them, and they can’t live with us, what will happen?

Not everyone agrees with Joy’s fatalistic view, including the scientists whose work he cites. The possibility of HAL—the intelligent computer from 2001, A Space Odyssey—and his brethren eliminating the human race is probably not something we will have to worry about for a while, but new technologies have already begun to redefine daily life at an astounding rate. The information age has ushered in a well-documented revolution in design and production over the past decade. So far these changes mostly have affected our ability to envision and illustrate new forms, but soon the entire artificial environment may be restructured. Our understandings of architecture may quickly become outdated.