An Interview with Alan Kay by Martin Wasserman

I'm

not talking to alan kay he is one of  the leading

pioneers in the development  of the modern

computer in the graphic user interface  that

was so familiar with today he's  also the president of

viewpoints  research which

is a company in Los  Angeles nonprofit nonprofit

company in  Los Angeles so Alan we're

talking about  collective intelligence today what

you see as the future of collective  intelligence where

is this going well I  think yeah

anthropologists think that

humans have been on the earth for a  hundred thousand years and

we're social  creatures and so we've had a form

of  collective intelligence throughout this

time and the results have not been very  pretty and

so 400

years ago a better way  of dealing

with magnifying

collective  intelligence called science was invented  and

it had the aspect

of sharing  knowledge which people been doing for a  long time

but it also had something that  people hadn't

thought of before and that  is how to be really

critical about

the  open

ideas that I really become up

didn't science go back thousands of  years no science

science as you

know  when it meant knowledge sian chea means

knowledge and so the gathering of  knowledge and certainly

Aristotle was

  interested in biology and with people  have

been interested in explanations but  generally

speaking you could say that  human beings have been interested

explanations but they've been willing to  be

satisfied with really weak ones over

  the years and the big difference between  the

last 400 years and the time before  that is

that people for the first time  wanted to have strong explanations

they  wanted to have these explanations be

terms of mechanisms of various clients  to explain

well you can explain natural  phenomena chiral

phenomena which  includes us since we're part

of this to  explain systems of all kinds too  Blaine

cause-and-effect relationships so  we won't

have a clear understanding of  the world we live in that's the

basic  idea and by saying it that way I

think  we agree that human beings were 100,000

  years haven't had a clear idea of it  we've made

up stories and we've been  satisfied with those stories

as  explanations and what science wanted to  do

was to come up with something  stronger than a story

even given the  fact that our brains

turn everything  into stories so the idea

is can you  factor what's wrong with the way we  think

into the process and try

and deal  with our errors in various ways and

so  the successful invention of science

  partly involved a social structure

in  which the people

who did the criticism  were usually not the

with the theories so the idea is that  even when

you're trying to be a good  scientist you also like your

own  theories let's say we acquired a huge

amount of knowledge we learned to  explain everything in the world

does  that mean that we would necessarily be  better

off well I think that if you had  cancer

and you went to a person who  understood

cancer and could do something  about it you would feel better off so

  one of the ways of looking at this is  that

there's kind of an interaction  between philosophy and

pragmatics

and  there's

a problem with people being way  too pragmatic often

at the expense of  other things

but generally speaking most  people would like to live

as long as  they can would like to be as happy as  long

as they can I would like to be able  to take care of their children

whole bunch of these things are  facilitated

very strongly not just by  understanding the physical

world but the  social world well you think

it's  necessary to have a coherent worldview a

framework of looking at the world in  which you can fit

everything and it all  makes sense no in fact I don't think

anybody can do that science doesn't take  that view

so science went

through  several stages and there is the 19th

century stage  where they

sort of second stage Newton  and they thought they

were nailing  everything down and then we had the 20th  century

with quantum mechanics and  relativity and people then realized

oh  now we know what's going on science

is a  way of taking views on stuff

that we  can't get to directly and like the  Mariners

in the 15th century who are the  precursors of science

wanting can make  maps that were accurate

rather than ones  that were the way the world was supposed  to

be like the Garden of Eden was on the  medieval

mass but instead of what they  wanted was where maps that were as

accurate as they could be and they  wanted annotations on them as to

where  the errors where and

who had seen this  and if you look at it among

you know a  map for the age of exploration

then the  UC

cyan't the you know the first  scientific writings

in the world done by

  observation and not a coherent

worldview  but a patchwork quilt that's supported  by

observations and so science now  realizes

oh you have to open up to  everything and

you just have to be very  careful about when you claiming

something is good knowledge or not now  when I talk about a

worldview I'm  talking about a set of governing  principles

that I apply in all  situations does

it is it necessary to  have that kind of

worldview where you  perceive the world is you know

somehow  governed according to some set of  principles

that can be defined well I  think that one

of the things you could  do is you could take a stance

about  outlook so for example suppose

suppose  one night you go to a

theater

beautiful  people on the stage beautiful

music  great words you're thrilled beyond  measure

the next night you go to the  very same building even

same people on this stage you also hear  great words first

night you're going to  shakespeare in the second night you're  going to

a political rally and if you're  in the same frame of mind

and both of  those you're in trouble

because

the what we basically in

the modern  world we're in a situation where we need  to be able to

choose what mode

going to be or what mood were going to  be in when we're dealing with

things are  we going to be in a mood that is full

of  feeling and effect where are we going to  be

a mood in which we're like this and  just letting things through

very very  carefully and

I think that that's a huge

difference in the modern world versus  the

middle age as for example you know  we're talking about intelligence

and one  of the hardest things to study is

human mind yeah very little is known  about it I don't

even think there's a  working definition of normalcy

so is the  process of applying collective

  intelligence could that be applied to  unravel

the workings of the mind because  the world is largely driven by

human  desires I want what I want and

the price I'm willing to pay to get it  and here's the price I'm willing to

make  other people pay to get it yeah well you

  could certainly make a very simplistic  argument

but not a bad one that most

of  the trappings of civilization are

  mechanisms and principles that are  designed

to oppose the genetic structure  that

our brains were shaped with other  anthropologists

have found about 300  universals

across all cultures including  the

desire for revenge and including the  desire for status

and language and  stories and and so

forth and things that  are non universals

our ideas like equal  rights

technology has been changing very  rapidly in

recent years we are becoming  dependent

on this technology at a rate  that some people think

is actually  alarming

Israel have we really thought  through the consequences

is so quickly  becoming dependent on

all of this  technology well I think the you

know  Thoreau said we become

the tools of our  tools and

when he was at when the

  transatlantic cable went in in 1865

was an old  and they asked him what he thought of

it  and he said he was rather afraid that

he  would find out that it European princess

  had just gotten a new hat so

I believe  that nails it and so

this is not new  it's just that most people are not

  thinkers like Thoreau was throw could

  understood that he lived in a construct

  and he lived in a technological age

as  technological in its own way as ours  because

any especially anything that is  posed printing press

could hardly be  more technological as

a set of media  that shaped things the big problem

is  not whether we're dependent on this  technology

but whether we understand it  or not and the thing

that lags is  getting any new idea through the  educational

system so the people who are  not intrinsically interested

in it which  is most people can actually

be exposed  to these ideas anyway