Douglas Engelbart | Hidden Heroes
An account of the mother of all demos, written by Steven Johnson.
An account of the mother of all demos, written by Steven Johnson.
I can’t recall the last time I was so creeped out by a technology as I am by Google Duplex—the AI
that can make reservations over the phone by pretending to be a human.
I’m not sure what’s disturbing me more: the technology itself, or the excited reaction of tech bros who can’t wait to try it.
Thing is …when these people talk about being excited to try it, I’m pretty sure they are only thinking of trying it as a caller, not a callee. They aren’t imagining that they could possibly be one of the people on the other end of one of those calls.
The visionaries of technology—Douglas Engelbart, J.C.R Licklider—have always recognised the potential for computers to augment humanity, to be bicycles for the mind. I think they would be horrified to see the increasing trend of using humans to augment computers.
We hoped for a bicycle for the mind; we got a Lazy Boy recliner for the mind.
Nicky Case on how Douglas Engelbart’s vision for human-computer augmentation has taken a turn from creation to consumption.
When you create a Human+AI team, the hard part isn’t the “AI”. It isn’t even the “Human”.
It’s the “+”.
Luke has been asking people to imagine ways of augmenting the world. Spimes are back, baby!
J. C. R. Licklider’s seminal 1960 paper. I’ve added it to this list of reading material.
The title should, of course, read “Person-Computer Symbiosis.”
Rev. Dan Catt's augmented reality future is here; it just isn't evenly distributed yet.