28 April 2000

I've been to Mecca.    Or at least one Mecca; one random attractor of spiritual energy in this age of unrelenting technological growth.   MIT has been on my list of Meccas since reading Neal Gershenfeld's "When Things Start to Think" last year. More specifically, the Media Lab at MIT where a palatable sum of neo-tech Chi resides. That spirit, described by Gershenfeld in his book, rang true with me in an ineffable manner that I will likely struggle in vain to describe for the balance of these journals. The more I see, the more I see.
With colleages from Sun I visited the Media Labs and attended the ThingsThatThink open house the following day. My dear wife joined me for the open house day, something I'll never forget as long as I live. I'd met Neal Gershenfeld the day before and was still pondering bits of that meeting when Liz pointed out that Nicholas Negroponte was sitting right in front of us during the conference proceedings.   While listening to the all-too-brief presentations, I couldn't help watching Negroponte's body language; he seemed quite engaged leaning forward in his seat as, I must admit, did I.
Later in the day Ray Kurzweil spoke, outlining many of the themes he'd detailed in his Age of the Spiritual Machines, citing yet more processes approaching cultural event horizons due to this enrapturing irresistable force we've enjoined.   I believe his next book is going to be called "Singularity" or something like that, but I got the distinct impression he'd taken a half step back from the tone of his book, exponentially explosive events notwithstanding: from what I saw of research at MIT and what I've read otherwise, Moore's Law isn't going to be repealed any time soon.
Much of what I saw I expected to see. A few things made my jaw drop. All in all, I found a wonderful group of bright, reasonable people doing exactly what I would expect them to be doing, researching exactly what I'd expect to be researched at a facility like the MIT Media Lab. The cross-discinplinary nature of their work must be both delightful to experience and painful to engage. But the joy there was apparent. And I felt true kindred spirits there. After I gave my elavator version of "If there's hope for humanity, it's in software," to the small group of professors and grad students,
our host replied, "That's pretty well how we feel about it too." I felt, for a moment, at peace. But it seemed to me too that the Shadow of Two Bills cast some gloom over those otherwise celebratory proceedings.