In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face. That is a rather startling thing to say, but it is our conclusion.
The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know today.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the potential for a close partnership between human intelligence and computers to revolutionize thinking and data processing.
J. C. R. Licklider's quote highlights the optimism surrounding the future of artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. He envisions a time when human brains and computing machines work closely together to achieve unprecedented levels of thought and data processing, suggesting a transformative impact on how we understand and manage information.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a conference on technology, one might say, 'As J. C. R. Licklider suggested, the combination of human and computer thought processes will lead us to new horizons.'
More from J. C. R. Licklider
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I am much less concerned with whatever it is technology may be doing to people that what people are choosing to do to one another through technology. Facebook's reduction of people to predictively modeled profiles and investment banking's convolution of the marketplace into an algorithmic battleground were not the choices of machines.
Engineers and entrepreneurs are fundamentally dissatisfied with the way the world is and want to make it better. There are so many things you could do with technology if you can match it up with real problems.
If you and your skills are a complement to the computer, your wage and labor market prospects are likely to be cheery. If your skills do not complement the computer, you may want to address that mismatch. Ever more people are starting to fall on one side of the divide or the other. That's why 'average is over.'
Sharing the code just seems like The Right Thing to Do. It costs us rather little, but it benefits a lot of people in sometimes very significant ways. There are many university research projects, proof of concept publisher demos, and new platform test beds that have leveraged the code. Free software that people value adds wealth to the world.
Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.
You talk as if a god had made the Machine," cried the other. "I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but not everything.