But if progress on making computers easier to use has been limited, we have made even less headway on Engelbart’s goal of using them to augment human intelligence. And such progress as has been made comes not from the software that runs on PCs but from the fact that we have found a way of enabling them — and therefore their users — to communicate. In that sense, Wikipedia is closer to an embodiment of “augmentation” than any piece of software ever written. And Google can be seen as a memory prosthesis for humanity — or at least for that part of it that has access to the network.
This morning, Engelbart and his wife will kick off a conference at the San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation to mark the 40th anniversary of his landmark San Francisco presentation. The subject is “collective intelligence.” He’s a famously prickly character, so my guess is that his reaction will be to observe, as Gandhi famously did when asked what he thought of Western civilization: “That would be a good idea.”
RSS