TIME TO START TAKING THE INTERNET SERIOUSLY
By David Gelernter
"In short: it's time to think about the Internet instead of just letting it happen."
Introduction: Our Algorithmic Culture
By John Brockman
Edge was in Munich in January for DLD 2010 and an Edge/DLD event entitled "Informavore" — a discussion featuring Frank Schirrmacher, Editor of the Feuilleton and Co-Publisher of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Andrian Kreye, Feuilleton Editor of Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Munich; and Yale computer science visionary David Gelernter, who, in his 1991 book Mirror Worlds presented what's now called "cloud computing."
The intent of the panel was to discuss — for the benefit of a German audience — the import of the recent Frank Schirrmacher interview and Reality Club discussion on Edge entitled "The Age of the Informavore." David Gelernter, who predicted the Web, and who first presented the idea of "the cloud", was the scientist on the panel along with Schirrmacher and Kreye, Feuilleton editors of the two leading German national newspapers, both distinguished intellectuals.
As a result of the panel, Schirrmacher has commissioned Gelernter to write a regular column for FAZ, which was inaugurated with this essay, published by FAZ in a German translation on March 1st ("Der Mann, der das 'World Wide Web' erst möglich gemacht hat.")
Those of us involved in communicating ideas need to re-think the Internet. Here at Edge, we are not immune to such considerations. We have to ask if we're kidding ourselves by publishing 10,000+ word pieces to be read by people who are limiting themselves to 3" ideas, i.e. the width of the screen of their iPhones and Blackberries.
Many of the people that desperately need to know, don't even know that they don't know. Book publishers, confronted by the innovation of technology companies, are in a state of panic. Instead of embracing the new digital reading devices as an exciting opportunity, the default response is to disadvantage authors. Television and cable networks are dumbfounded by the move of younger people to watch TV on their computers or cell-phones. Newspapers and magazine publishers continue to see their advertising model crumble and have no response other than buyouts.
Take a look at the photos from the recent Edge annual dinner and you will find the people who are re-writing global culture, and also changing your business, and, your head. What do Evan Williams (Twitter), Larry Page (Google), Tim Berners-Lee (World Wide Web Consortium), Sergey Brin (Google), Bill Joy (Sun), Salar Kamangar (Google), Keith Coleman (Google Gmail), Marissa Mayer (Google), Lori Park (Google), W. Daniel Hillis (Applied Minds), Nathan Myhrvold (Intellectual Ventures), Dave Morin (formerly Facebook), Michael Tchao (Apple iPad), Tony Fadell (Apple/iPod), Jeff Skoll (formerly eBay), Chad Hurley (YouTube), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) have in common? All are software engineers or scientists.
So what's the point? It's a culture. Call it the algorithmic culture. To get it, you need to be part of it, you need to come out of it. Otherwise, you spend the rest of your life dancing to the tune of other people's code. Just look at Europe where the idea of competition in the Internet space appears to focus on litigation, legislation, regulation, and criminalization.
Gelernter writes:
The Internet is no topic like cellphones or videogame platforms or artificial intelligence; it's a topic like education. It's that big. Therefore beware: to become a teacher, master some topic you can teach; don't go to Education School and master nothing. To work on the Internet, master some part of the Internet: engineering, software, computer science, communication theory; economics or business; literature or design. Don't go to Internet School and master nothing. There are brilliant, admirable people at Internet institutes. But if these institutes have the same effect on the Internet that education schools have had on education, they will be a disaster.
It is just about 10 years since Edge and FAZ co-published Gelernter's June, 2000 manifesto, "A Second Coming", which was widely read and debated. I expect nothing less for this powerful and provocative piece by one of the leading visionaries of the cybersphere. I welcome comments and look forward to a rich Reality Club discussion.
DAVID GELERNTER is a professor of computer science at Yale and chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies (New Haven). His research centers on information management, parallel programming, and artificial intelligence. The "tuple spaces" introduced in Nicholas Carriero and Gelernter's Linda system (1983) are the basis of many computer communication systems worldwide. He is the author of Mirror Worlds, and Drawing a Life: Surviving the Unabomber.
David Gelernter's Edge Bio Page
FURTHER READING ON EDGE:
"Cloud Culture: The Promise And The Threat" By Charles Leadbeater
Edge@DLD: "Informavore": David Gelernter, Andrian Kreye, Frank Schirrmacher, John Brockman
"The Age of the Informavore": A Talk with Frank Schirrmacher
"Lord of the Cloud": John Markoff and Clay Shirky talk to David Gelernter
"The Second Coming: A Manifesto" by David Gelernter
The Edge Annual Question 2010: "How Is The Internet Changing the Way You Think?"
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