CONNECTICUT LIBRARIES
March 1997, Vol. 39, No. 3
CONNECTICUT LIBRARIES
March 1997, Vol. 39, No. 3
Funny Thing
Observations on The Connecticut Forum’s Cyber Life Symposium
A Review by Vince Juliano
How will technology affect our lives? Where are computers and the Internet taking us? These have been the main themes of “Looking at Books” over the past 10 months. When the Connecticut Forum announced that the theme of its January 30th forum was Cyber Life ... Technology’s Impact On All We Do, I jumped at the chance to attend.
Michael Kinsley, former senior editor of The New Republic, co-host of CNN’s Crossfire, and editor of Microsoft’s online magazine Slate, moderated the discussion. He is witty, quick, and knows how to frame a question. The panel’s heavyweight was Nicholas Negroponte, author of Being Digital, director of the MIT Media Lab, senior columnist for Wired magazine, and true believer in a bright technological future.
The other panelists were also impressive. Kim Polese played a major role in the development of Java, and now heads her own company. Mary Catherine Bateson is the daughter of legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead and historian Gregory Bateson, and is a respected scholar and author in her own right. Jaron Lanier is a composer and artist who coined the term “Virtual Reality,” established the world’s first VR company, and helped to originate many VR innovations, including the interface glove. Christopher Janney creates interactive art on an architectural scale. His musical “sculptures” have been displayed in the subways of Rome, Boston, Paris, and New York.
Since this was a free-wheeling discussion, I will note only a few favorite comments. Kinsley immediately stirred things up by asking about potential negatives. Mary Catherine Bateson’s response was the most perceptive. She said that these technologies are so new that the most negative things about them are things that we cannot yet conceive. BUT, the most wonderful things that will result are also beyond our imagination!
The panelists agreed that computers were too difficult to use. When Jaron Lanier hinted that he sometimes regretted the move toward ease of use, and thought the need to “tinker” was part of the appeal of computers, Negroponte wouldn’t buy it. He pointed out that computers were composed of a hierarchy of complex systems. So, where does the user start tinkering? The operating system? The processor? No, people need friendly machines. Technical knowledge must not be a prerequisite to their use.
Panelists supported computers in education. However Jaron Lanier saw danger in the large-scale purchases of computers occurring in schools today. He feared that rows of monitors, keyboards, and system units in classrooms lock students into an institutionalized view of what a computer looks like, and shuts them off to other possibilities. Why can’t a computer look like a piece of clay? or a crayon? Who’s to say what innovations will replace today’s familiar desktop units, towers, and laptops?
Peering into the future, Polese was excited by a developing market for a whole host of new products. She predicted that the consumer’s need for easy to use technology might lead to specialized devices that could replace the general purpose computer for many applications. While she did not elaborate, she brought to mind Lanier’s earlier remark that electronic games such as Nintendo contained sophisticated technology for far less money than personal computers. Computer manufacturers might face competition in the consumer market from makers of game machines.
Is 5 or 6 hours a day too much time in front of a computer? Most panelists equivocated. Christopher Janney, in contrast, was clearly worried. He maintained that people need to experience the world with all five senses. With due respect to Lanier’s virtual reality work, Janney felt that computers overdosed users with visuals.
Censorship issues were raised by several speakers. Negroponte considered it a non-issue. He noted that censorship is a centralized way of controlling information. The government controls dissemination of information at the center (newspaper, radio station, television station, etc.). The Internet works differently than traditional media. There is no center. Instead, there are, potentially, as many disseminators as there are recipients of information. Efforts to censor the Net are doomed.
Now for the “funny thing.” We librarians really have done a great deal of heavy thinking about these issues. Most of what these technological all-stars had to say sounded familiar. In some cases, the experts’ answers might even sound a little naive to librarians!
Here’s one more funny thing. The wizards have as much trouble with their computers as the rest of us mortals. Even Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab, evangelist for digital money, and apostle of “digital shoes,” confessed to being angry with his son for installing a new version of Word on his Power Book laptop. The poor guy is having a heck of a time learning the new program! Around the semi-circle of respected digerati, heads nodded in empathy and commiseration.
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