The Dream Machine

The Dream Machine

M. Mitchell Waldrop

Name Game

The hunt for words that stick

Given the central role of communication in his new science, Wiener explained, his first thought had been to derive a name from the Greek word for “messenger.” Unfortunately, that word was angelos, which in English had long since taken on the specific meaning of “a messenger from God.” Somehow, a new science of angelics wasn’t quite what he was looking for. ... And that, Wiener felt, could be transmuted into English very nicely, as cybernetics. Selfridge and Pitts agreed that cybernetics was indeed an excellent name for the new science. And so, blissfully ignorant that he had just given later generations the means to coin an endless string of buzzwords—cyberspace, cybercash, cyberpunk, cybersex, ad infinitum—Wiener continued writing.
Collective Brain

Why isolated groups lose knowledge and capabilities.

To appreciate the importance the new computer-aided communication can have, one must consider the dynamics of “critical mass,” as it applies to cooperation in creative endeavor. Take any problem worthy of the name, and you find only a few people who can contribute effectively to its solution. Those people must be brought into close intellectual partnership so that their ideas can come into contact with one another.
Joy Dividend

Joy became more productive than efficiency optimization.

After I had found the answers it was always painful to write them up or to publish them (which is how you get the acclaim).” In short, mathematics for Shannon was more like a game, something that he did for the pure intellectual joy of it. And indeed, that’s what his friends tend to remember best about him: his extraordinary playfulness.
Trust Networks

Large coordination emerges from small-scale trust.

Another participant, Ivan Sutherland, remembers his first meeting in 1964: “These people met, period. The group had no charter, no responsibilities, no budget, no purpose—but it was a great thing. We would discuss what was important, what was current, and what was going on. Precisely because the group had no charter, it was a wonderful way of getting information flow between the agencies.”
Unreliable Parts

Mega-projects orchestrate unreliable elements into coherent wholes.

But even that wasn’t good enough, not for a machine whose tubes would number in the tens of thousands: the odds of one’s failing at a critical moment were still just too great. So after working and reworking the numbers, the group decided that the only answer was redundancy. Every computer in the air-defense system would have to be paired with an identical backup computer that would be ready to take over at a moment’s notice.
Tinkering Sanctuary

Protected spaces insulated from interference enable breakthroughs.

This free-wheeling “ARPAstyle” of management was radical for 1961, and nothing like the rigidly top-down hierarchy that prevailed elsewhere in the Pentagon. But it worked. Old Washington hands who transferred into the agency could only shake their heads in disbelief: decisions that would take months anywhere else were made at ARPA in a matter of days.