If there's hope for humanity it's in software

Goads to Innovation

Moore's Law implies more machines. As each successive generation of processor technology gives rise to exponentially more application possibilities, intelligence is becoming a common feature in stuff that was once dumb. Homes, home appliances, automobiles, consumer devices, communication devices of all kinds, all benefit from the transistor-spiked virtuous cycle first articulated by Moore. Processors now outnumber humans and will continue to surpass the growth rate of the human population for the foreseeable future. As such, even while machine-to-human (m2h) communication is growing, machine-to-machine (m2m) communication (and therefore interfaces) as a class of communication, is growing considerably faster. Facilitating that growth is a "teleological vector" for software development, which is to say that in order to facilitate the growing m2m class of communication, we must assume as a purpose the need for that communication as goaded by Moore's Law.

Similarly, the goad for "innovation" is that of the opportunity promised by Metcalfe's Law. Metcalfe's Law simply states that the number of possible connections in a network is a function of the square of the number of nodes on that network. The opportunity
for connection can be viewed from an economic perspective as a fundamental primitive enabling commerce. Indeed, transactions in a computer science sense are just as valuable as transactions in a business sense, as providing the bases for business conducted via the network. Hence, viable ecommerce is dependent upon Metcalfe's Law for certain threshold values, which we are still discovering.

Gilder's Law too affects opportunity, which goads innovation. With rapidly increasing bandwidth possibilities, the rate of innovation may begin to strain the ability of the fitness landscape to sufficiently test it, which is to say that future bubble economies are not unthinkable. Without question, increasing bandwidth is at least giving rise to increasing storage needs, representing commodity growth potential for years to come. But the possibilities that come with some near-future threshold of personal bandwidth should strain all existing service models. As such, Legacy consuming Innovation as an incremental function of time is misleading in that true innovation will always give rise to ontologically disruptive events, which changes the very incremental improvement assumptions of the fitness landscape.

the noosphere grows into the adjacent possible

Figure 2: (Click on image to enlarge) Software Teleology: the configuration space for software interfaces is shaped by technology's defining forces. Elemental Goads (the Nth Laws) drive Eric Raymond's noosphere (legacy) persistently into Stuart Kaufman's adjacent possible (innovation). The measure of Guilder's Law above is average number of megabits per node-second (Mb/n-s). Note that the X and Z axes can effectively be folded together for illustrative purposes.

But given the growing balloon of legacy interfaces, which are goaded by the exponential Net Effect forces we've identified, and the quadrants that emerges when we juxtapose the goading forces along their respective interface continuums, a model emerges which we can call Software Teleology.

The three dimensions of this configuration space are the Net Effect forces. Moore's Law implies exponentialy more machines in time. Hence, m2m increases faster than m2h communications. Metcalfe's Law is simply expressed as the potential value of the network expressed as a function of the possible connections that can be make. And Gilder's Law expresses the average number of megabits per node-second workwide. Thus, as the number of nodes increases (which the model reflects indirectly via Moore's Law), the number of node-seconds increases correspondingly.

Purpose and Placement

Figure 3: Java Platform teleological positioning (Click to enlarge).

We can use the model to chart "purpose" from at least two perspectives, and provide insight into software design considerations in doing so. At least two fundamental perspectives to consider are:

1. What is the purpose of the software I'm writing wrt:
- Legacy devices, infrastructure and institutions viz. the interfaces they expose?
- new devices and their interfaces?
- human beings and their interfaces?
2. What is the purpose of the underlying components
and platforms I elect to utilize?

"Purpose," in the context of this discussion, means an analysis of fuctional and interface requirements as well as the technical and business problems that we are attempting to solve. This in addition to a mindful reflection on the affects of the cited forces and the technical and business directions implied by our interaction with others in an envirnment shaped by those forces.

Answering those questions regarding "purpose" can lead us to consider the related concept of "teleology." Let us specify that teleology is purpose, cognizant of vector and landscape. By vector, we can further specify that there is a direction implicit in choices made on behalf of a software project; that rather than a random walk, a teleological vector implies a mindful reflection of the goading forces which shape the fitness landscape. A teleological vector could therefore be assumed to be a characteristic of any piece of software we may wish to discuss. Which is to say that it is a fair question to ask, "Where does your software want to go (today)?"