View source for Alan Kay Preparation Interview for at XT 20 Conference


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<subtitle id="0:0:3">i got asked to</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:6"> give a talk at xd 20 because i was</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:9">of the researchers and leader of a research</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:12">arpa and xerox park combined research</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:15"> community in the 60s and the 70s that</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:18"> invented many of the technologies</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:21">are in use today including the ones that we're using</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:24"> right now these include personal</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:27"> computing the graphical user interface ethernet</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:30"> the internet laser printing client</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:33"> server computing and a host of other ones and</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:36"> so this was not just a series of inventions but</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:39">creation of several</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:42"> uh really large industries that have</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:45"> by according to the wall street journal have</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:48"> returned about 45 trillion to the world</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:51"> and the four largest</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:54"> uh capital net worth companies in america</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:0:57"> all use are based on these technologies</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:0"> so besides being good ideas besides being</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:3"> something that can boost human intellect</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:6">and deal with much more complicated</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:9">situations it also has been</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:12"> a tremendous commercial success</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:15"> far beyond normal r</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:18"> d efforts so one point that's of interest i think to people</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:21"> is that despite this no country</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:24"> or company or university</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:27">fund such an effort however i just read in</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:30">the uk is going to</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:33"> try and set up a kind of an arpa</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:36"> modeled structure and it'll be interesting</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:39"> to see how well this works the combined</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:42"> computing research at xerox park</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:45"> was only about 15 billion 15 million</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:48"> pounds a year if that</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:51"> and i saw in the guardian that the proposed</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:54"> outlays perhaps uh 800</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:1:57"> of those millions of pounds so there's</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:0"> plenty of money there the key is can you get the</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:3"> right people and you can you set up something</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:6"> that allows the</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:9"> researchers and the right researchers to</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:12">do the kind of stuff that normally was only done when</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:15"> they were in the middle of a war</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:18"> that's the second point is that</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:21"> there have been many such efforts successful efforts</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:24"> like arpa and xerox park in the past</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:27"> especially in the u.s and the</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:30"> cold war and then back in world war ii and the particular</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:33"> way of going about it actually traces back to the combined</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:36"> joint work of the uk</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:39"> and the us in developing radar</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:42"> for world war ii there's a direct link</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:45"> in the methodologies used back then</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:48">to an extent in projects</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:51"> that were not so directly involved like bletchley park</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:54"> over here and los alamos</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:2:57"> and the atomic bomb effort</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:0"> so i think what will be of interest to the</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:3"> people who go to this conference will likely be</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:6"> the idea first that it really can be done</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:9"> and it has been done more than once</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:12"> that most uh</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:15"> normal regular people are quite against</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:18"> taking what seems to be a huge risk</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:21"> but in fact the payoff from these</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:24">which have actually been only a few uh 100 million</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:27"> pounds or so has been in the trillions</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:30"> so if you count up all the zeros the return on</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:33">ot fifteen percent but more like twenty thousand</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:36"> percent so it's actually would make good business</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:39"> sense for people to take these kinds of risks</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:42">but that isn't the way uh business people think</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:45"> and so this is i think a really interesting</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:48"> area to explore and that's what i will at least open the door</subtitle>
<subtitle id="0:3:51"> to in my</subtitle>