It was understood that the computer would change us. It was desired that it should. For with the computer, it was reasoned, humanity will have unlocked an ultimate tool in its quest for understanding: a machine capable of augmenting what it means to be human.
Yet for the profundity of its part, the computer is an unthinking, and therefore unheard, shepherd. A voiceless agent granting neither award nor issuing admonishment. This double edge we conceal in part through careful design, but mostly on faith. Faith that, on a clear night, when the bejeweled sky seems to twinkle, someone will ask "why" and the computer, so prompted, will spew forth a thousand maybes leading to the right "because."
I lied this lie to myself in the fervent belief that it was true. When it was revealed as a lie, when the computer did not free us, I blamed hungrier minds for its destruction—for perverting the machine and surrendering everything it was built to achieve.
But the truth is that there never was a culprit because the phrase "what it means to be human" never had any meaning beyond the hopelessly subjective. The true essence of the computer is like that of fire: a quiet machine who would just as soon burn us away as carry us off to distant worlds.
Yet for the profundity of its part, the computer is an unthinking, and therefore unheard, shepherd. A voiceless agent granting neither award nor issuing admonishment. This double edge we conceal in part through careful design, but mostly on faith. Faith that, on a clear night, when the bejeweled sky seems to twinkle, someone will ask "why" and the computer, so prompted, will spew forth a thousand maybes leading to the right "because."
I lied this lie to myself in the fervent belief that it was true. When it was revealed as a lie, when the computer did not free us, I blamed hungrier minds for its destruction—for perverting the machine and surrendering everything it was built to achieve.
But the truth is that there never was a culprit because the phrase "what it means to be human" never had any meaning beyond the hopelessly subjective. The true essence of the computer is like that of fire: a quiet machine who would just as soon burn us away as carry us off to distant worlds.
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