On ‘Man-Computer Symbiosis’
July 14th 2008 12:04 am
Licklider, J. C. R. “Man-Computer Symbiosis.” “The New Media Reader.” 2003. 74-81
Licklider’s essay is similar in topic to Weiner’s essay. Licklider discusses the changes that must happen for man and computer to be symbiotic, but most of these revolve around reducing and potentially removing the time spent doing menial tasks. He discusses how most of his time is spent graphing, plotting, and calculating, all tasks which computers are well suited for and can perform almost infinitely faster than humans performing the tasks by hand. He eludes to, I believe, an evolution of this idea such that the relationship between man and computer become a seamless one. Man and computer should work in harmony to simply accomplish things, and not be bound by one or the other. It’s an interesting idea, and I’d like to see more.
About the author... Daniel Huckstep is a software engineer(ing student) at the University of Alberta. He enjoys all aspects of computers and their software, reptiles, guitar and music creation, reading, and macaroni salad. 
Wesley Cooper
responded on 15 Jul 2008 at 10:13 am #
Nice. Licklider was directly concerned with man-computer symbiosis, whereas I think Wiener had a more general concern with `systems’ that exhibit control characterized by feeback relationships, as in steam engines.