Slashdot Mirror
The Father of Mobile Computing Is Not Impressed (fastcompany.com)
harrymcc writes: Starting in the late 1960s, Alan Kay envisioned a powerful portable computer that would be a revolutionary learning device, then built some of the necessary tech at Xerox PARC and elsewhere. Today, his ideas are all around us -- but Kay is distinctly unimpressed with the iPhone, iPad, and other modern devices, which he says encourage passivity rather than creativity. Brian Merchant talked to the computing pioneer for a wide-ranging interview on FastCompany. An excerpt from the interview: Google has been around for a long time now. I bitched at [Google] for years: Why the fuck can't we type in a question and get a decent answer? There's all sorts of pre-processing you can do with the computing we have now to put a lot more semantics in there, and look at the shit you're retrieving. And by the way, the stuff that isn't popular -- which is probably what most people need to read, if the thing even knew what the question is -- is buried [in Google search results], and most people won't go past a couple of results or clicks.
A pen nominally allows more uninterrupted creativity than a quill and inkwell would, but mostly they get used for jotting down the grocery list.
See, the problem isn't the technology, it's the humans.
As much as visionaries come up with things they think will lead to a better world, the reality is cat videos, narcissism, and porn are what people really want. The internet is more about teenagers taking selfies these days than it is about improving the human condition.
Unfortunately, you can't force people to do what you envisioned would be their potential.
He's complaining about the technology, but it is the people using it that make companies build it that way. They don't want to put any thought into the process, they just want to put in a minimal amount of info and get a reasonable answer.
Unconvinced. I don't want computers to answer my questions. I want them to help me answer my own. An answer isn't the mere transfer of data, it's the alteration of my mind into a different state. That can't happen properly if the basis for the transformation exists only in some other system.
Google has been around for a long time now. I bitched at [Google] for years: Why the fuck can't we type in a question and get a decent answer? There's all sorts of pre-processing you can do with the computing we have now to put a lot more semantics in there, and look at the shit you're retrieving.
Because Google already gets into trouble when it prefers its own services or when it editorializes. Alan Kay should note that when one asks Google for what are essentially undisputed facts one often gets Google-formatted answers. Search for famous persons and one usually get the page formatted with an excerpt from their biography, date of birth, place of birth or upbringing, some basic information on what brought the person to prominence, etc. Generally these things are not disputed, so there's no real risk in presenting them in this fashion.
Now, if Google starts answering controversial questions, even correctly, they may face some real backlash that they wish to avoid from people that can't accept the answer. It's even worse if there is some legitimate dispute in a discussion, and appearing to side with one answer or another when something isn't settled can influence the discussion in ways that are not appropriate.
If you want straight answers, look at Wolfram Alpha.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
If he knows how to build a better search engine than Google, then form a company and kick Google's ass. Or, go to work for Bing. Wasn't question answering supposed to be wolframalpha's forte?
AI still lacks what we usually call "common sense" and screws up a lot of things because of that. The tech isn't there yet.
Table-ized A.I.
Please, Google is an advertising agent, not the answer man.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I would be ready to pay a nice price if there was SmallTalk for Android (not RedLine, based on Java, that has no 'images'), a truly one where you can suspend the VM and restart where you where.
But alas, I don't have the time to compile a Skeak or Pharo VM and figure all the pitfals.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Exceptional individuals are rare by their very nature, and it seems likely they're prone to misunderstanding the minds and motivation of the regular folk.
Still, the technology is there for someone who wishes to use it to access the collected knowledge of mankind, so the misuse by the many doesn't completely negate the original intent.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Apple used to ship the best starting programming environment ever developed, Hypercard, for free on all of their machines. The same company doesn't allow programming on iOS except in very limited (in-game typically) ways. There is absolutely a sense that you should be a consumer, not a producer, on modern devices and it drives me crazy.
I read the internet for the articles.
Funny how it works very well when you need to buy something, be it a gadget, movies ticket or anything at all.
Of course this is not coincidence.
The product is not meeting customer demand (after all, Kay is a customer, and his demands aren't being met).
No. He's not the customer. Google is an advertising company. Their product is eyeballs, not search results. over 90% of their revenue comes from advertising.
"If you're not paying for the service, you are not the customer, you are the product."
How many of y'all ever sit by somebody chanting/cussing at their phone and could literally boot a computer pull up %browser% TYPE the question and have a correct and complete answer before the person even got close to getting an answer??
trust me unless you speak Mideastern Broadcaster or British Received you would have to be in a quiet room for any VR system to understand you if you don't know how to ask the question.
That people use the devices they paid for in the ways they want to , instead of how he tells them to.
It's all for our own good, you know. Daddy knows what's best for everyone.
Who the fuck cares that you have a personal problem with certain words that are used for emphasis. You're a child if you find that special words should be excluded from use.
It's not perfect, but Google does answer your questions now. For example, if I type into Google "what is the landspeed record?" I get the following result in a caption box above the website search results:
"The official land-speed record (measured over one mile) is 1,227.985 km/h (763.035 mi/h) (Mach 1.020), set by Andy Green (UK) on 15 October 1997 in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA, in Thrust SSC."
Seems like a pretty good answer to me.
Reminds me someone (yep, a repost!) said "it is the cow theory" and explained it as a herd of cows in a corral. It only takes one cow to figure out how to open the gate, then the entire herd can leave the corral.
mfwright@batnet.com
iPhone X - overpriced? Maybe so. But it has blazing fast multithread processing, some pretty damn good cameras, a miniature lidar scanner, a 5.8" oled screen, 6-axis accelerometer/gyroscope, great microphones, and three different modems to connect you to devices and the sum total of human knowledge.
Alan probably wants to use the lidar, cameras, and 6-axis motion sensor to autonomously stitch together accurate 3-d models for insertion into virtual environments or hit "print" and it duplicates a real object on a 3-d printer in minutes.
Meanwhile the feature released with this advanced device is to literally transform your face into a talking poop. The problem isn't in the capabilities, it's in what the average person wants.
you sound bitter, sweet tits
Why shouldn't he be bitter? When we were young, we were promised flying cars and jet packs. We were told we would have moon bases in the 1970s, and by 2000 colonists would be heading for Europa. Yet decades later, here we are, still washing the dishes with no robotic maid in sight.
Alan Kay is 77 years old, and in the twilight of his life. He has worked hard, paid his taxes, and followed the rules. Yet not only does he have no flying car, he can't even get a proper answer to a fricken query!!! Damn right he is bitter.
Nexus and Pixel users pay Google for hardware. Are they also "the product"?
You have to attract those eyeballs, pal. The OP's point still stands.
The article disappoints because the interviewer doesn't force Kay to explain what he thinks Engelbart got right that HTML didn't.
But it did have a few gems along the way.
Perhaps readers discriminate against writers who use "fuck" because of the high overall correlation between forms of that word and fallacious arguments, particularly those that use personal attacks or other appeals to emotion. Someone who reads Cracked, for example, might not have this bias because though its articles contain the occasional F-bomb, they are on the whole well reasoned.
If it's used in every paragraph, then you ignore that person. Some poeple will drop the f-bomb when the traffic light turns red Some people use the f-bomb as their one and only adjective. The expletive is no longer shocking. But if I hear my mother use an expletive it is shocking enough that I pay attention. Where Alan Kay fits into this range is unknown, but I suspect he doesn't use the word that often in public, so I read that line as showing extreme dissatisfaction and not just mild annoyance.
The reason I wanted Kay to give an explicit answer about what Engelbart got right that HTML didn't is that I'm wary about these judgements in hindsight.
I was reading Rob Pike this morning.
Go at Google: Language Design in the Service of Software Engineering — 2012
Would s/Go/HTML/g be a correct map for Kay's opinion? Because HTML really was designed more for engineering at scale than anything else.
And this always draws a chorus of criticism from the conceptual purity boo birds.
Kay is a pretty smart guy, but did he ever learn his billion times tables really? I rather suspect that was never native to his cognitive style.
In particular the bad functionality of Google is utterly pathetic. You often have to comb through a lot of search results until you find something meaningful. Add to that that they basically killed the competition and Google is responsible for a massive dumbing-down. By now they are holding people back as badly as Microsoft.
So, what is it with the stupid pattern search? The lack of a built-in programming or scripting language that easily lets you configure what your phone does or does not do? The lack of UI customization that does survive updates?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
As long as over 90% of Google's revenue comes from advertising, yeah, they are.
Fallacy does not determine truth or falsity of an argument; to claim it does so is the fallacy fallacy. But it does help people identify which arguments to consider verifying or falsifying and which to ignore. Otherwise, if people attempted to verify or falsify all arguments, they would have little or no time to do anything else. Some fallacies make better heuristics than others.
In other words, no keyboard. You just sit and consume our content. If you have anything to say, keep it to 144 characters that you can compose with two thumbs.
Have gnu, will travel.
Sounds like he's complaining more about human nature than anything to do with mobile computing or google.
-Styopa
You can spend almost the same money on an android phone. Granting they will have extra bells and whistles like a thermal camera or a 1000fps camera.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Stuff has been dumbed down for the masses. Compare any "music streaming service app" to WinAmp from 1998 - none of them even have 1/4 of the features of WinAmp 2.8/2.9. Do any of them even let you actually rate songs? Or just the mindless Thumb.
Classic "Shoot the messenger, ignore the message" fallacy.
Grow the fuck up.
And the father of TV thought it would be used for education and to bring symphonies to the masses.
Instead, we have exposed the dregs of the human soul.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
He spoke prematurely.
This interview happened before Apple unveiled their talking poop emoji.
Millions of people are about to get really creative.
I think he means the film director.
Ezekiel 23:20
Fuck "natural language", I just want them to give us back the search primitive for +"must contain this literal text". Or complex boolean queries that rigorously observe parentheses, double-quotes, and proximity.
I wrote an app a few years ago that ran a query, then automatically fetched every search result & bruteforce-searched through them via regex for the real results, but Google's server detected something amiss & started throwing captcha challenges at it.
Pens and quills can still be used to write books... however mobile computers have deliberately been dumbed down to only be ad displaying devices making some noise every couple of seconds.
I mean he has seen systems like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
That system, including software and operating system was far simpler than Android/iOS/whatever we have today, yet it's able to provide you with an intuitive and powerful user interface. I mean in the video you see someone drawing a program without a keyboard.
Alan Kay has seen people doing so much more with so much less effort. It's only understandable he is not impressed.