One of Michael Crichton's first novels was The Terminal Man. Definitely not his best novel, but give the guy a break. It was published in the early 1970s and dealt with a big fear of the early 1970s: computers taking over the world. Well, I say we'd better hope that Jurassic Park isn't as prophetic as The Terminal Man is proving to be.
Today, while I was perusing my blogs, I ran across this highly interesting piece. In it, the author contemplates the evolution of the relationship between humans and computers through the limited scope of man vs. machine chess matches. His conclusion is one of hope and triumph (machines can be no smarter than the programmers, so computers will always be dumber than people--but even if they're not, way-to-go people for making such a dang smart machine), but he talks about some interesting things there at the end. For example, he talks about how some kid got to Level 3 on Space Invaders playing with wires going into his head. Another example is some type of dental implant that doctors can program to administer medication when and as necessary. (This is remarkably similar to a story in Walter Mosley's Futureland.) These dental implants are being tested right now in the European Union. How very interesting.
If you're going anywhere near Costa Rica in the next 35 years--be careful. It may have taken The Terminal Man three-and-a-half decades to come true, but when you start dealing with Jurassic Park, you're mixing chaos theory with thunder lizards, and that's trouble.
3 comments:
I hope you didn't say Costa Rica just to scare me...that's not nice.
Don't worry--just keep your ears open for talk among the locals about odd animal attacks. If you hear anything like that, run for the hills.
Como se dice "odd animal attacks" en espanol?
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