[PREV - THE_BIG_GAME]    [TOP]

AUGMENTATION

                                             July 13, 2021

In his 1962 paper on Augmenting Human Intellect,
Douglas Englebart presents a vision of what can
be done with computers that is immediately
recognizeable as the way we live in the modern
world.  He describes an architect using graphical
displays controlled by "a small keybord and other      He describes the
devices" interactively trying out various ideas        computer as the
to see how they'll work, given a model of a            architect's "clerk".
particular building site.


   The universe we're living in is very much
   the Englebart universe-- and at this point
   life has been like this for us for a few
   generations.

   I think it can be hard to get across to
   people who hadn't lived through the
   transition: this idea of computers as
   partners to human intellects, as tools
   for *augmenting* human intelligence,
   that was a totally new idea.

      Science fiction of that era
      was obsessed with fears that            Englebart, from the beginning
      artificial computer                     put the emphasis augmenting
      intelligence would replace              human capabilities:
      humans: will the computers
      rise up and take control?               "Many of the external composing
                                              and manipulating (modifying,
                                              rearranging) processes serve
                                              such characteristically 'human'
                                              activities as playing with forms
                                              and relationships to ask what
                                              develops, cut-and-try
                                              multiple-pass development of an
                                              idea, or listing items to
                                              reflect on and then rearranging
                                              and extending them as thoughts
                                              develop." -- Englebart, 1962


--------
[NEXT - PERSONAL_AUGMENTAION]