One half of a Manifesto
Self Evolving Technology is hold up by bad software?
The One Half Manifesto (PDF warning) by Jaron Lanier appeared on my screen while looking for "Nonlinear Storywriting" at google and while I have been reading Ludity statements about the assertions that Mr. Kurzweil makes there never seemed to be an informed comment against the technology religion that spreads like a wildfire around the world these days. While I am a supporter for Kurzweils immediate drastic change in society through technological advancements I have been sceptic about the paths he draws out that lead towards the change and think that the problem this would cause in humans psychology would probably be so overwhelming that it would cause the collapse of society in general and negate any technological advancements we might have.
Jaron Lanier seems to think so as well - again with the normal "I am american and my believes are the utter truth" attitude that I already hate in Kurzweils dissertations - he defuses lot of the predictions that have been made about the future from Kurzweil and the like. His most objective comment and one that I havenīt thought about but that plagues me every day is Software - or better the sad state that software is still in despite the technological advancements we had in the past years. And when I type on this computer (not state of the art but fast as hell compared to 15 years ago) I have to agree. Not even on a 1 Mhz KC85/III has a computer lagged when I was typing something - now in the year 2006 I have lots of occasions where the computer displays the text that I am writing with a huge delay. Of course I have about a billion of windows open and run tons background processes but also the computer is about a million time faster then when I had my first computing experiences. The problem seems that software is not scaling as well as the hardware. This he connects to evolution in saying that evolution is also slow - even if parts seem to evolve fast - there is never a revolutionary step in evolution - and evolution is what the techno pundits hold up as their biggest motive - that technology one day will become more powerful then humanity - more intelligent even - and that technology is an extension of evolution. So plagued by overheads too much data and too little solutions to solve that the hyper expansion of technology seems to be slowed down. Yes there will be drastic change in the future but it wonīt be autonomous and it will be controlled by humans.
Then again - as is my belief - that a stupid mistake or strange coincidence might make all the difference - as is the case in evolution as well. I do not understand the "humanity will be doomed" approach that Mr. Lanier is taking in his paper as I go with Mr. Kurzweil on this issue saying that if there is technology that could wipe civilisation off the map there is also technology (or information) on how to prevent that and it would create a balance as there has been a strange balance all throughout history keeping us from our own destruction.
So in the end the "One half of a Manifesto" is exactly that - one half - the other is uncertain and only time will tell if we ever reach a point where we need to worry about such things. Hilarious is his remark about the future beeing a blend of the best of socialism and capitalism because 95% of the world population will work on help desks that try to fix software problems - I can clearly follow him on those lines - software sucks and this will not change as long as humans write it.