I've had a suspicion for a while that despite the astonishing success of the first generation of computer scientists like Shannon, Turing, von Neumann, and Wiener, somehow they didn't get a few important starting points quite right, and some things in the foundations of computer science are fundamentally askew. 

Introduction

In September, 2000, Jaron Lanier, a pioneer in virtual reality, musician, and the lead scientist for the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, weighed forth on Edge against "cybernetic totalism"."For the last twenty years," he wrote, in his "Half a Manifesto" (Edge #74), "I have found myself on the inside of a revolution, but on the outside of its resplendent dogma. Now that the revolution has not only hit the mainstream, but bludgeoned it into submission by taking over the economy, it's probably time for me to cry out my dissent more loudly than I have before." In his manifesto, he took on those "who seem to not have been educated in the tradition of scientific skepticism. I understand why they are intoxicated. There is a compelling simple logic behind their thinking and elegance in thought is infectious."

"There is a real chance," he continued, "that evolutionary psychology, artificial intelligence, Moore's Law fetishizing, and the rest of the package, will catch on in a big way, as big as Freud or Marx did in their times. Or bigger, since these ideas might end up essentially built into the software that runs our society and our lives. If that happens, the ideology of cybernetic totalist intellectuals will be amplified from novelty into a force that could cause suffering for millions of people." "Half a Manifesto" caused a stir, was one of Edge's most popular features, and has been widely reprinted.

Lately, Lanier has been looking at trends in software, and he doesn't like what he sees, namely "a macabre parody of Moore's Law". In this feature, which began as a discussion at a downtown New York restaurant last year, he continues his challenge to the ideas of philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, and raises the ante by taking issue with the seminal work in information theory and computer science of Claude Shannon, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, and Norbert Wiener.

—JB

JARON LANIER, a computer scientist and musician, is a pioneer of virtual reality, and founder and former CEO of VPL. He is currently the lead scientist for the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, and visiting scientist, SGI.

Jaron Lanier's Edge Bio Page

We've already had a digital revolution; we don't need to keep having it. The next big thing in computers will be literally outside the box, as we bring the programmability of the digital world to the rest of the world. With the benefit of hindsight, there's a tremendous historical parallel between the transition from mainframes to PCs and now from machine tools to personal fabrication. By personal fabrication I mean not just making mechanical structures, but fully functioning systems including sensing, logic, actuation, and displays.

[11 minutes]

Introduction

Neil Gershenfeld teaches a class at MIT called "How To Make (almost) Anything," where the students have access to high-level tools on which the university spends millions of dollars. He expected his course to be a lab for the top engineering students to master the machines. Instead, he is finding that non technical students are showing up and and bringing varied backgrounds to bear on exploiting the possibilities and capabilities of the newest technology available.

"One student, a sculptor with no engineering background," he reports, "made a portable personal space for screaming that saves up your screams and plays them back later. Another made a Web browser that lets parrots navigate the Net."

"From this combination of passion and inventiveness", he goes on, "I began to get a sense that what these students are really doing is reinventing literacy. Literacy in the modern sense emerged in the Renaissance as mastery of the liberal arts. This is liberal in the sense of liberation, not politically liberal."

—JB

NEIL GERSHENFELD directs MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. His unique research group investigates the relationship between the content of information and its physical representation, from molecular quantum computers to virtuosic musical instruments. Technology from his laboratory has been seen and used in settings including New York's Museum of Modern Art and rural Indian villages, the White House/Smithsonian Millennium celebration and automobile safety systems, Las Vegas shows and Sami reindeer herds.

He is the author of numerous technical publications, patents, and books including When Things Start To Think, The Nature of Mathematical Modeling, and The Physics of Information Technology, and has been featured in media such as The New York Times, The Economist, CNN, and the PBS.

Neil Gershenfeld's Edge Bio Page 

Until the '60s, governments were not really involved in car design. Then people like Ralph Nader started noticing that a lot of people were being killed in cars and made it clear why this was happening. We have spent the last 35 years or so designing safety into cars, and it's had a pretty dramatic effect. . . We're in that same era now with security on computer systems. We know we have a problem and now we need to focus on design.

Introduction

Richard Smith is one of the nation's most outspoken privacy mavens, with a difference. Smith is a veteran software hacker who who has a deep understanding of both computers and the Internet. He uses his expertise in Sherlock Holmes fashion to ferret out privacy and security flaws and abuses. Smith is a personal computer industry veteran. He recalls meeting Bill Gates in the 1970s when the two men attended a meeting in Kansas City to establish a standard for PC data storage on tape recorders.

— John Markoff, Technology Correspondent, The New York Times

RICHARD M. SMITH has been described by The New York Times as "perhaps the nation's most vocal authority on data privacy." Smith has been in the computer business since the early 70s, and has been involved in microprocessors from day one. He began his career as a programmer, co-founded a software company, and became the head of the nonprofit Privacy Foundation, where he served until November, 2001. Since September 11, he has changed his focus from privacy to security. He is now focuses on technology related to security issues and he operates a web site that reports "computer bites man" stories, named ComputerBytesMan.com. He lives and works in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Richard Smith 's Edge Bio Page

In 1999 and 2000, Howard Rheingold started noticing people using mobile media in novel ways. In Tokyo, he accompanied flocks of teenagers as they converged on public places, coordinated by text messages. In Helsinki, he joined like-minded Finns who share the same downtown physical clubhouse, virtual community, and mobile-messaging media. He learned that the demonstrators in the 1999 anti-WTO protests used dynamically updated websites, cell-phones, and "swarming" tactics in the "battle of Seattle," and that a million Filipino citizens toppled President Estrada in 2000 through public demonstrations organized by salvos of text messages. Drivers in the UK used mobile communications to spontaneously self organize demonstrations against rising petrol prices. He began to see how these events were connected. He calls these new uses of mobile media "smart mobs." For nearly two years, Rheingold visited hotspots around the world where smart mob technologies and societies were erupting. He had some idea of how to look for early signs of momentous changes, having chronicled and forecast the PC revolution in 1985 and the Internet explosion in 1993. He is now sees a third wave of change underway in the first decade of the 21st century, as the combination of mobile communication and the Internet makes it possible for people to cooperate in ways never before possible.