Poetic Prospects for Progress

The evolution of technology has caught the world asleep at the wheel; on a daily basis, newscasters, politicians, and analysts criticize the advance of artificial intelligence and its deep implantment in the fabric of human life. It seems as if innovators have been distracted by their efforts dedicated to solving problems and have neglected to foresee the negative consequences that can erupt from a computer with too much power. However, could our aptitude for constructing entire virtual universes have been expected years ago? In 1999, David Gelernter, a computer science professor at Yale University, authored an essay titled "The Second Coming — A Manifesto" in which he gazes into the cyberspace of technology's future through a lens that has never been used before (Gelertner, 1999).

Gelernter's manifesto is comprised of 58 points of commentary that criticize humanity's limitations in creation, characterize the limitless power of computers, and dictate the inevitable abilities of future systems and their elements. At the time of the essay's publishing, humanity stood at the edge of substantial alterations in the way technology is managed. Computers had already evolved significantly from their conception to the late 1990s, and Gelernter's manifesto acts as a direction for further gradation in a more effective manner than ever before. His tone throughout the manifesto is that of cultivating irritation with the stagnation of computers; he seems to understand the possibility that exists for the betterment of the current systems and is frustrated that not enough is being done to move forward.

Gelernter views the current computer conventions as accidents of the past that have remained intact due to people's adoption and acquaintance of them without an attempt for alteration. Have we as innovators arrived at a point in the history of computers where we can assess the functionality of what we've become attached to and determine whether replacements of thought and effort are needed? I believe that replacement will not entail a discardment of all we possess, but will rather be an act of higher performance. Computers have a wide variety of features beyond the simplistic act of creating and sorting documents that Geletner criticizes so thoroughly, and these functions will be the precursors to the revolutionary ideas he seeks.

References

Gelernter, D. (1999). The Second Coming – A Manifesto. Edge. Retrieved from https://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge70.html