I think Ryan has best articulated what it's all about for me anyway: "regaining control of our technology". Simplicity and clarity are, to some extent, their own imperative. That's nothing new: Occam's Razor has long been the dominant aesthetic in mathematics and the natural sciences at least. In a world such as ours where all human endeavors are increasingly influenced (often unintentionally) by technological concerns, I feel it as a moral imperative as well.
A computer is a necessary tool for engaging with the modern world of human knowledge and culture. A truly personal computer should be fully understandable and extensible, inside and out, by its individual users, without the users having to devote a disproportionate amount of effort to this understanding. If these users thereby become more "productive", that's great too, but I don't think that's the major goal. -- Max On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 3:35 AM, Ryan Mitchley <[email protected]> wrote: > I would imagine that the goals align with the task of "augmenting human > intellect", to borrow Engelbart's phrase. > > The STEPS project, in particular, seems concerned with compact > representations that approach the entropies of the systems being > simulated. Computing, to me, anyway, is very closely linked to > simulation. A compact representation is (hopefully) easier understand, > thus making it suitable for educational purposes. However, it should > also be more computationally efficient, as well as enabling greater > productivity. > > I think it's also about regaining control of our technology. A modern > computer system is composed of layer upon layer of ad hoc mechanics, > short on architecture and long on details. There are few people who have > a truly good understanding of the complete system from firmware to UI, > including all the details in between, and it's not because the details > are fundamentally complex - they simply involve huge amounts of rote > learning. Something like Linux has grown somewhat organically, without > any of the robustness that organic growth might imply. > > Given concerns about security and privacy - not to mention demonstrable > correctness of operation - an easily decomposable, understandable system > is hugely desirable. There should be bonus side effects, such as running > well on lightweight mobile devices. > > I hope to see computing systems becoming vehicles for training > intelligent agents that assist human endeavours - by automating menial > tasks, freeing humans to concentrate on more interesting problems, while > also leveraging the abilities that are trivial for computers, but hard > for humans (large scale data processing, correlation and statistical > analysis, particle simulation, etc.). I also hope to see more of the > abilities that have traditionally been described as A.I. entering > mainstream computation (goal-seeking behaviour, probabilistic reasoning). > > > > Disclaimer: http://www.peralex.com/disclaimer.html > > > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > [email protected] > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc >
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