Transcript humboldt2008

October 22, 2008
Some Questions from Lickliders Thinking
Jay Hauben
[email protected]
1
J.C.R. Licklider.
"Man-Computer Symbiosis."
In IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics,
volume HFE-1, pp. 4-11, March 1960.
http://memex.org/licklider.pdf
J.C.R. Licklider and Robert S. Taylor.
“The Computer as a Communications Device.”
In Science and Technology
no.76, Apr. 1968, pp. 21 31.
http://memex.org/licklider.pdf
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“The hope is that, in not too many
years, human brains and computing
machines will be coupled together very
tightly, and that the resulting partnership
will think as no human brain has ever
thought and process data in a new way
not approached by the informationhandling machines we know today.”
JCR Licklider
JCR Licklider, Man-Computer Symbiosis, 1960
3
The sea worm
Osedax
A sea bacteria
of the family
Oceanospirillales
harbored here

Whale bone eater worms have no digestive system. The bacteria which feed on whale
bone lipids can not easily get to the bones. But the worm Osedax harbors its symbiotic
partner, an Oceanospirillales bacteria which digests the lipids for the worms so they
both get the nutrients each needs.
http://www.phschool.com/science/science_news/articles/gutless_wonder.html
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"The collection of people, hardware, and software -the multi-access computer together with its local
community of users -- will become a node in a
geographically distributed computer network.”
J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor,
The Computer as a Communication Device,
1968
5
What is technology vis-a-vis humans?
6
Is technology, rather than bad or good or neutral,
in some ways 'natural'?
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A Netizen is a net citizen. A
citizen of the net. Netizens are
not just anyone who come
online. Rather they are people
who understand it takes effort
and positive action on each and
everyone's part to make the Net
a regenerative and vibrant
community and resource.
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"Well, I don't see any point in looking any farther.
It was probably just one of those wild rumors."
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Thank you
[email protected]
10
“It seems reasonable to envision, for a time 10 or
15 years hence, a 'thinking center' that will
incorporate the functions of present-day libraries
together with anticipated advances in information
storage and retrieval.”
- J.C.R. Licklider, Man-Computer Symbiosis, 1960.
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“The picture readily enlarges itself into a network
of such centers, connected to one another by wideband communication lines and to individual users
by leased-wire services.”
JCR Licklider, Man-Computer Symbiosis,1960
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procognitive system
a system for the advancement and application of knowledge
described in Licklider’s 1965 book:
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Social/Political Questions
Would society set itself the goal of developing
intellectual and scholarly resources?
Would all the holders of digitized information
share their holdings without restriction?
Would society resist the commercial pressure
to keep knowledge proprietary?
14
Protestors from around the world gathered in Seattle Washington to
demonstrate against the globalization activities of the World Trade
Organization
Photo:
15
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/80676
One million protestors in NYC on Feb 15, 2003.
Police allow only 100,000 on to First Ave.
Photo:
http://www.thegully.com/essays/iraq/030220_photos_antiwar_nyc.html
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“Through the network . . . , all the large computers can
communicate with one another. And through them, all the
members of the super community can communicate -- with
other people, with programs, with data, or with a selected
combinations of those resources.”
J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor,
The Computer as a Communication Device,
1968
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“For the society, the impact will be good or bad,
depending mainly on the question:
Will ‘to be on line’ be a privilege or a right?
If only a favored segment of the population gets a
chance to enjoy the advantage of "intelligence
amplification," the network may exaggerate the
discontinuity in the spectrum of intellectual
opportunity.”
J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor,
The Computer as a Communication Device, 1968
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NY Times August 19, 2007 Op-Ed Column
He Got Out While the Getting Was Good
By FRANK RICH
• The rise of YouTube certifies the passing of
Mr. Rove's era, a cultural changing of the
guard in the digital age. Mr. Rove made his
name in direct-mail fund-raising and with
fierce top-down message management. As
the Internet erodes snail mail, so it upends
direct mail. As YouTube threatens a
politician's ability to rigidly control a
message, so it threatens the Rove ethos that
led Mr. Bush to campaign at "town hall"
meetings attended only by hand-picked
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supporters.