[HN Gopher] Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960)
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Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960)
Author : davedx
Score : 105 points
Date : 2024-07-03 09:26 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (groups.csail.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (groups.csail.mit.edu)
| hmarkgen wrote:
| What is striking about written documents from that era is the
| lucid and yet far more sophisticated writing style compared to
| contemporary publications.
|
| Would Licklider be happy with the AI slop that we see today?
| Would he be able to use LLMs in a productive manner?
|
| People in that era could be optimistic because they did not
| suffer from information overload. The best symbiotic relationship
| is still man-book or man-pencil-and-paper.
| davedx wrote:
| I suspect he would think ChatGPT voice is pretty close to what
| he envisioned for man-machine symbiosis
| pyrale wrote:
| They could be optimistic because they didn't get suckered by
| what tech has become. It is the same kind of optimism that can
| be found in Engelbart's preamble to the mother of all demos.
|
| The idea that one could treat a program delivered by google,
| facebook or amazon as something to cooperate with rather than
| use warily is much harder now than it was then.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Major fields of study like chaos (sensitive dependence on
| initial conditions within an apparently deterministic system),
| protein structure solving from X-ray diffraction patterns and
| many others would be impossible without computational
| assistance from machines.
|
| As far as style and tone, you can certainly get LLMs to mimic
| Licklider's style with suitable prompting, e.g.
|
| > "In replicating the reflective and anticipatory tone of the
| original text, it becomes evident that the concept of man-
| computer symbiosis was not merely speculative but a forecast
| grounded in the trajectory of technological and computational
| advancements. This partnership, as envisioned, holds the
| promise of amplifying human potential through the strategic
| leverage of computational power, thereby redefining the
| boundaries of what can be achieved through the confluence of
| human and machine capabilities. The profound foresight in
| recognizing and articulating such a partnership underscores a
| remarkable understanding of the complementary strengths of man
| and machine, heralding a new era in the evolution of
| technological augmentation."
| justin66 wrote:
| Alan Kay chats / blogs / whatever-it-is-people-do-there a lot
| on Quora and the question "What would be the place of AI in
| Doug Engelbart's vision of 'Augmenting Human Intellect'? How
| can we reconsider things within current AI 'developments'?"
| recently came up.
|
| https://www.quora.com/What-would-be-the-place-of-AI-in-Doug-...
| tolerance wrote:
| Would he even be happy with the man-made slop and productively
| collaborate with other people today?
|
| > The best symbiotic relationship is still man-book or man-
| pencil-and-paper.
|
| And foremost, man-man.
| boguscoder wrote:
| There's a book "The Dream Machine"* that is kinda biographical
| for this paper
|
| * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722412
| davedx wrote:
| Yes I read the book first 6-7 years ago! One of the best books
| I've read, up there with Skunk Works.
| boguscoder wrote:
| Huge props for Skunk Works! I found Dream Machine
| considerably harder to read (non native speaker here) but
| content is golden anyway
| liendolucas wrote:
| Author of Skunk Works? Is it related to Lockheed Martin
| Skunk Works division?
| tesseract wrote:
| Ben Rich, and yes: he was the 2nd director of the
| Lockheed Skunk Works.
|
| I think the book may have been out of print for a while
| but it's easily available now.
| liendolucas wrote:
| Thanks, for some reason I got downvoted... Just for
| asking an author. HN is indeed surprising.
| criddell wrote:
| The Stripe Press edition of the book is a beautiful product,
| but the font is small. I bought the book but had a hard time
| reading it so I got a digital copy for my ereader where I could
| select a larger font.
| uolmir wrote:
| It is one of my favorites. I actually came to it via "where
| wizards stay up late", which I would also recommend although it
| doesn't have the depth and insight of dream machine.
| metroholografix wrote:
| Wizards for me falls flat (kinda like "soul of a new machine"
| that's often recommended but which I found a complete waste
| of time) while the Dream Machine, Dealers of Lightning [1]
| and Norbert Wiener's biography [2] are all essential reading.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-
| Computer...
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Hero-Information-Age-
| Cybernetics...
| boguscoder wrote:
| Id also add The Idea Factory* unless you have even better
| recommendations for Bell Labs era
|
| * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11797471-the-idea-
| factor...
| tedunangst wrote:
| Showstopper, about windows NT, is a good replacement for
| Soul.
| jjice wrote:
| This is a _dense_ book (in the best way). So much incredible
| history that's not as well presented anywhere else I've found.
| Sitting at 500+ pages and the font is pretty damn small, this
| is one hell of an informative book. We really stand on the
| shoulders of giants.
| krtkush wrote:
| Took me about 6 months to finish it. But it was such a fun
| read! I would put it in the leagues of Making of the Atomic
| Bomb and Emperors of Maladies.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| And Rocket Men.
| pjmorris wrote:
| 'The Dream Machine' languished in my 'To read' pile until I
| started the audiobook while on a road trip earlier this year.
| I was drawn in and read it through, switching between audio
| and ebook. I knew parts of the puzzle but it was amazing to
| see how they all fit together. An amazing book about a series
| of amazing accomplishments that let us share these ideas so
| widely and quickly.
| cxr wrote:
| Here's the first of a three-part interview with Waldrop, the
| author of The Dream Machine[1] and semi-official Licklider
| biographer of sorts:
|
| <https://luminary.fm/episode/mitch-waldrop-on-the-dream-
| machi...>
|
| 1. Not to be confused with Ted Nelson's titled work Dream
| Machines, one half of the pair Computer Lib/Dream Machines that
| described Project Xanadu and articulated a vision about
| computer user freedom that predates Stallman and the free
| software movement, complete with manifesto.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| That is a pretty grounded, timeless write-up for 1960.
| 5.4 The Language Problem The basic dissimilarity
| between human languages and computer languages may be the most
| serious obstacle to true symbiosis.
|
| LLMs unlock the much sought after capacity to query data in
| natural language, that is why "AI" is such a hype, besides not
| being intelligent (in terms of reasoning) at all.
| soloist11 wrote:
| The computer works with binary sequences. LLMs do not change
| this fact.
| moffkalast wrote:
| They don't really have to. Even in Star Trek where you can
| tell the holodeck to do whatever in LLM fashion, there's also
| a lower level language that can be used for more fine
| control. It's always good to have levels of abstraction when
| you need them, this just adds the very top one that was
| always missing.
| soloist11 wrote:
| The fact is that they do and it doesn't matter how many
| abstractions we put on top of the underlying physical
| reality of digital computation, it will always be digital
| unless someone figures out how to make analog computation
| as scalable as digital computation.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Impressively, the author predicts the rise of declarative
| programming:
|
| > "The idea may be highlighted by comparing instructions
| ordinarily addressed to intelligent human beings with
| instructions ordinarily used with computers. The latter specify
| precisely the individual steps to take and the sequence in which
| to take them. The former present or imply something about
| incentive or motivation, and they supply a criterion by which the
| human executor of the instructions will know when he has
| accomplished his task. In short: instructions directed to
| computers specify courses; instructions-directed to human beings
| specify goals. ... It is clear that, working within the loose
| constraints of predetermined strategies, computers will in due
| course be able to devise and simplify their own procedures for
| achieving stated goals."
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _Licklider 1960_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38800451
| - Dec 2023 (1 comment)
|
| _Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32856009 - Sept 2022 (8
| comments)
|
| _Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26887654 - April 2021 (8
| comments)
|
| _Man-Computer Symbiosis by J. C. R. LICKLIDER (1960) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20642783 - Aug 2019 (1
| comment)
|
| _Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18950590 - Jan 2019 (2
| comments)
|
| _Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14302515 - May 2017 (2
| comments)
|
| _Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11673917 - May 2016 (1
| comment)
|
| _Man-Computer Symbiosis [J.C.R. Licklider] (1960)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11534637 - April 2016 (1
| comment)
|
| _Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8418654 - Oct 2014 (6
| comments)
|
| _Internet Antichrist [J.C.R. Licklider 's Man-Computer
| Symbiosis]_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=920121 - Nov
| 2009 (1 comment - article by David Byrne of all people)
|
| Also related:
|
| _Who Is This "Licklider" Guy? (2008)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20442278 - July 2019 (11
| comments)
|
| _J.C.R. Licklider on the History of Personal Workstations (1986)
| [video]_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11049205 - Feb
| 2016 (28 comments)
|
| _The Computer as a Communication Device (1968) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9014413 - Feb 2015 (2
| comments)
|
| _How DEC scientists imagined the Internet in 1968 -- a year
| before the Internet_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5754287 - May 2013 (1
| comment)
| olooney wrote:
| Some related works from my notes on the extended mind thesis:
|
| The Extended Mind Thesis, Andy Clark and David Chalmers (1998)
| - https://www.alice.id.tue.nl/references/clark-
| chalmers-1998.p...
|
| Man-Computer Symbiosis, J. C. R. Licklider, (1960) -
| https://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html
|
| As We May Think, Vannevar Bush (1945) -
| https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-m...
|
| Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework, by Douglas
| Engelbart (1962) -
| https://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html
|
| Characteristica universalis, Leibniz (c. 1679) -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristica_universalis
|
| Edit: Also, if you're interested in Licklider in particular,
| The Dream Machine is essential reading.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-M-Mitchell-Waldrop/dp/1...
| im3w1l wrote:
| I assume that the reason this is relevant now is because of the
| the announcement of FinalSparks NeuroPlatform, that gives SaaS
| access to brain organoids?
|
| Very cool but also very creepy. Has a clear potential to become
| the most evil thing humanity has ever done.
|
| Checking now, it has been posted to HN a few times in the last
| weeks but without discussion really taking off.
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/worlds-first...
| kaycebasques wrote:
| > The fig tree is pollinated only by the insect Blastophaga
| grossorun. The larva of the insect lives in the ovary of the fig
| tree, and there it gets its food. The tree and the insect are
| thus heavily interdependent: the tree cannot reproduce without
| the insect; the insect cannot eat without the tree; together,
| they constitute not only a viable but a productive and thriving
| partnership. This cooperative "living together in intimate
| association, or even close union, of two dissimilar organisms" is
| called symbiosis [27].
|
| I believe the meaning of symbiosis has evolved since 1960.
| Symbiosis is now an umbrella term that only implies a close
| association between two organisms. It doesn't necessarily imply
| mutual benefit anymore. A mutually beneficial association is
| called mutualism. An association where one benefits at the
| expense of the other is parasitism. Commensalism is when one
| benefits and the other is neither harmed nor benefited. There is
| also amensalism, where one is harmed and the other is neither
| harmed nor benefited. Symbiosis is the superset of parasitism,
| commensalism, amensalism, and mutualism.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis
|
| It's amusing to me when people use "symbiosis" in the old sense
| and then I start pondering whether the thing they're describing
| is actually {mutual,amensal,parasit,commensal}ism
| binary132 wrote:
| FWIW, I've never heard of any meaning of symbiosis other than
| mutually beneficial. I'm not able to cite this but I believe
| the prefix sym- may imply this.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| Look at the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page on the
| topic
|
| > Symbiosis (from Greek sumbiosis, symbiosis, "living with,
| companionship, camaraderie", from sun, syn, "together", and
| biosis, biosis, "living")[2] is any type of a close and long-
| term biological interaction between two biological organisms
| of different species, termed symbionts, be it mutualistic,
| commensalistic, or parasitic.[3] In 1879, Heinrich Anton de
| Bary defined it as "the living together of unlike organisms".
| The term is sometimes used in the more restricted sense of a
| mutually beneficial interaction in which both symbionts
| contribute to each other's support.[3]
|
| It acknowledges the popular use of the term while implying
| that the technical meaning is broader
|
| > I've never heard of any meaning of symbiosis other than
| mutually beneficial
|
| This is exactly why it's so funny to me. Some snake oil
| salesman says "we have a symbiotic relationship with XYZ" and
| in my head I'm thinking "yes, a parasitic symbiotic
| relationship..."
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| i've never heard of a parasitic relationship being
| described as symbiotic...
| kaycebasques wrote:
| > "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a
| scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean --
| neither more nor less."
|
| > "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make
| words mean so many different things."
|
| > "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be
| master - that's all."
| prewett wrote:
| It's all fun and games by Lewis Carroll, but given the
| amount of doublespeak in American cities these days
| (especially by the Left but also by the Right), I think
| we need to insist that words have a meaning and you can't
| twist them to mean the opposite.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I am literally sourcing my definition from the first
| paragraph of the Wikipedia article on symbiosis
|
| I totally get it. People usually mean "mutually
| beneficial" when they talk about symbiosis. But the
| deeper we go into this Hacker News thread, the more
| amusing it gets to me that multiple commenters are really
| struggling to acknowledge the broader meaning of the
| term. And what's even funnier is that the broader meaning
| probably originates from biologists and ecologists;
| people who are very invested in precise language in this
| space.
| carlosneves wrote:
| I actually prefer to think in terms of the broader sense of
| symbiosis (including all the types of symbiosis you mentioned).
|
| Sure we want the way we relate to technology to be mutualistic,
| but in reality we observe many instances of the other kinds of
| relationships.
| ash-ishh wrote:
| https://karpathy.ai/blog/licklider1960.html
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