Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

Those who worked on the AI project had the dream of creating an
alternative to the human brain, a more powerful thinking machine that
could replace us. An alternative vision was the augmentation approach,
which moved from huge mainframe computers to smaller microcomputers
that would not replace users but increase our abilities to create, organize,
and share information. The product of this movement was the Internet, an
unregulated network of computers, open to all. The development of the
Internet has had stunning effects on contemporary culture, including the
creation of a new realm, cyberspace, where people can live other lives that
The early proponents of AI saw the need for large computers to
model the complexity of the human brain. They also believed that
once we achieved AI, we would increase the size of computers.
The dream was that someday, we would be able to substitute the
At the time, there was also a different picture of the future of
computing and of humanity. This picture did not encompass
big companies, big government, and big computers; indeed, it
was exactly the opposite. In this view, the idea was to shrink the
computer to give power to people.
The vision was quite different from that of researchers working
on AI. It was not to replace people but to augment them. The
technology would not only make each one of us better at being
who we are and doing what we strive to do, but it would bring us
all together, allowing us to become more interconnected. It would
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