TURING'S CATHEDRAL [10.24.05] by George Dyson, on von Neumann and Google.
"My visit to Google? Despite the whimsical furniture and other toys, I felt I was entering a 14th-century cathedral — not in the 14th century but in the 12th century, while it was being built. Everyone was busy carving one stone here and another stone there, with some invisible architect getting everything to fit. The mood was playful, yet there was a palpable reverence in the air. 'We are not scanning all those books to be read by people,' explained one of my hosts after my talk. 'We are scanning them to be read by an AI.'..
"The best description comes from science fiction writer Simon Ings: 'When our machines overtook us, too complex and efficient for us to control, they did it so fast and so smoothly and so usefully, only a fool or a prophet would have dared complain.'"
Is it me or does Dyson want us to roll over and surrender to the Borg?
Posted by William Blaze at October 29, 2005 05:48 PM