Eric Paulos is a man riding the experimental edge between humans and machines. His research in this area, both in his graduate studies in computer science and robotics at the University of California at Berkeley, and with renegade robot troops such as Survival Research Laboratories, is far more adventurous than most researchers in similar space dare to be. “Lethal, anonymous tele-obliteration,” the “I-Bomb,” and several types of tele-embodiment are just a few of his past projects. Danger is definitely not outside the scope of his work. Continue reading “Eric Paulos: ExperiMental InterAction”
Bruce Sterling: Future Tense
Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky let me run this interview in my book, Follow for Now. It was originally on Paul’s site, djspooky.com.
“For if the Jazz Age is year for year the Essences and Symptoms of the times, then Jes Grew is the germ making it rise yeast-like across the American plain. . . . The letters after their names are their tommy guns and those universities where they pour over syllables their Big House.” — Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo
“The city no longer exists, except as a cultural ghost for tourists.”
— Marshall McLuhan, “The Alchemy of Social Change” from Verbi-Voco-Visual Explanations, 1967
First things first: It took me a zillion years (summer to winter 1999) to write this ’cause I didn’t know where to start. I think about Bruce Sterling’s writing and see a precedent that runs throughout a lot of American science fiction. It’s a tradition of writing where the future is far more of a barometer to measure the present than the past, and it’s the fracture points in the lines of thought holding it all together that his work explores. Continue reading “Bruce Sterling: Future Tense”
Survival Research Laboratories: Post-Apocalypse Now
Remember the evil toys from the movie Toy Story, the ones with all the mis-matched parts from other toys, all rearranged into new strategies of purpose? Imagine those same toys built to life-like scale: in car-lengths instead of Lego-lengths, built with military surplus parts and armed with military surplus weapons. Now picture no-holds-barred warfare between these bastardized giants of the scrap heap. A skirmish between screaming, fire-breathing, chewing, burning monsters bent on hate for one another and devoid of concern for their human overseers. Continue reading “Survival Research Laboratories: Post-Apocalypse Now”
John Eikenberry: Free Agent
After graduating from the University of Georgia with a master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence, John Eikenberry turned to the web to continue his career. His thesis focused on “using semantic networks for keyword analysis and document classification,” which was achieved mainly by developing independent agents. His current work is centered around a bot/agent development environment. Continue reading “John Eikenberry: Free Agent”
Rudy Rucker [Part One]: Keeping It Transreal
My friend and colleague Tom Georgoulias let me run this interview in my book, Follow for Now.
Rudy Rucker has a lot of things on his mind. Although his day job has him teaching computer science and mathematics at San Jose State University, Rucker is a writer. He has written twenty nonfiction and science-fiction books covering such topics as higher dimensions, artificial life, and biotechnology. Called the original cyberpunk author by many, his self-described “transreal” writing style is akin to Kerouac’s On the Road (Viking, 1959) and an issue of Scientific American after a run through the mince cycle on a blender. I recently had the chance to catch up with Rucker and discuss two of his most recent books, Seek! (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999) and Saucer Wisdom (Forge Books, 1999). Continue reading “Rudy Rucker [Part One]: Keeping It Transreal”
Kevin Warwick: The Man in the Mind of the Machine
Described a short time ago as Britain’s leading prophet of the robot age, Professor Kevin Warwick is head of the Cybernetic Department at The University of Reading. He has designed countless machines that learn amazingly complex behaviors on their own. He is currently involved in a computer/human interface experiment that finds him with an active microchip implanted in his arm. The chip sets off sensors, causing them to activate various processes as he walks by. Continue reading “Kevin Warwick: The Man in the Mind of the Machine”
Richard Saul Wurman: Technology, Entertainment, Design
My friend and colleague Mark Wieman did this interview with Richard Saul Wurman, which ran in my book, Follow for Now.
With the publication of his first book in 1962 at the age of 26, Richard Saul Wurman began the singular passion of his life: making information understandable. Wurman coined the term “Information Architecture” in 1976 and in 1984 he created the Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference and remains chairman and creative director. The next TED conference, TEDX in February 2000, will focus on understanding America at the millennium and will be accompanied by the publication of his sixty-sixth book, Understanding USA (TED Conferences, 1999). Continue reading “Richard Saul Wurman: Technology, Entertainment, Design”
James Gleick: The Chaos of Time
James Gleick is one of the best science writers alive today. His body of work includes the phenomenal Chaos: Making a New Science, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (both of which were Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalists in the United States) and countless articles for New York Times Magazine.
He just finished his next book titled Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything which is due out in September.
Roy Christopher: Could you preface your new book Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything? In light of this, Moore’s Law and other recent concepts of time — such as Stewart Brand and Danny Hillis’ Clock of the Long Now — where do you stand on the seeming elasticity of time and the general population’s perception thereof (where responsibility, coping and the eventual circumstances are concerned)?
James Gleick: I guess I’m going to have to learn how to compress my view of all this into a few words. Somehow it was easier to ramble on for the length of a book. We know life is speeding up; Moore’s Law just makes it official, in one small domain. We know we’re surrounding ourselves with time-saving technologies and strategies, and we don’t quite understand how it is that we feel so rushed. We worry that we gain speed and sacrifice depth and quality. We worry that our time horizons are foreshortened — our sense of the past, our sense of the future, our ability to plan, our ability to remember. That’s the (worthy) motivation for the Clock of the Long Now, I think.
Anyway, my book is an attempt to weave many different threads together into a kind of whole. I spent a lot of time doing old-fashioned reporting, hanging out at places like the U.S. military’s Directorate of Time, television postproduction studios, airline control centers, and so forth — places where the compression of time really matters. Without giving anything away, I guess I can say that I found myself recoiling at the notion that we’re somehow just victims. We make choices, I feel. We haven’t always been able to work through the consequences of every choice, but we’re not stupid, either.
RC: Having been online longer than most, do you find the ever-increasing corporate encroachment on the Web saddening, or does it bother you in the least?
JG: Well, both. Mostly I just enjoy the explosion of connectivity, the Web penetrating into every part of modern life. It’s depressing to see banner ads on every page and to endure all the scummy get-rich-quick junk mail, but there’s no reason to expect the Internet to be free of the vices that afflict the off-line world. Sure, I’m shocked, shocked, that there’s commercialism online, just as I’m shocked that there’s pederasty and racism online. I wish I could go to a ballgame without seeing any advertising, too.
RC: Do you follow the Open Source software movement, and if so, do you have any thoughts on its brewing battle with Goliath (Microsoft)?
JG: Sure, I think the Open Source movement is great, and more or less the world’s only hope. Software is just bits, after all, and the marginal cost seems to be pretty close to zero. So either you accept that, or you try to win as a monopoly. Unfortunately, books are just bits, too. I hope when the dust settles there will be a way for software developers and writers to make a living.
Esther Dyson: Release 2.0
Esther Dyson personifies the expression “mover and shaker” like no other. She keeps more figurative fingers in more pies than she has actual fingers on her hands: Russian, Central European as well as American start ups, multiple boards of directors, frequent flying, constant consulting (for the likes of the two Bills: Gates and Clinton, among countless others) and she still finds time to swim for one hour every single morning. One of the least interesting facts about her is that she’s the daughter of famous physicist Freeman Dyson. Continue reading “Esther Dyson: Release 2.0”
Ellen Ullman: Close to the Machine
Ellen Ullman has been programming computers for over two decades, but her best writing isn’t her code: it’s her literary writing. Her 1997 book Close to the Machine is a haunting memoir from the front lines of the digital revolution. Whether it’s her many articles for Wired, The New York Times, her commentary on NPR or her books, Ellen’s grasp of the human condition through the ever-thickening haze of whiz-bang technology is her real strength. Continue reading “Ellen Ullman: Close to the Machine”