1: EMBRACE THE SWARM, STRATEGIES

If it is not animated, animate it.

Just as the technology of writing now covers almost everything we make (not just paper), so too the technologies of interaction will soon cover all that we make (not just computers). No artifact will escape the jelly bean chip; everything can be animated. Yet even before chips reach the penny price, objects can be integrated into a system as if they are animated. Imagine you had a million disposable chips. What would you do with them? It's a good bet that half of the value of those chips could be captured now, with existing technology, by creating a distributed swarmlike intelligence using such dumb power.

2009/03/19 2 Comments 0 Links

 

2 Comments

#1 | Fri, 03-20-09 06:55 | Neil in Chicago

"I went to my first computer conference at the New York Hilton about 20 years ago. When somebody there predicted the market for microprocessors would eventually be in the millions, someone else said, 'Where are they all going to go? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob!'
"Years later, I went back to the same hotel. I noticed the room keys had been replaced by electronic cards you slide into slots in the doors.
"There was a computer in every doorknob."
-- Danny Hillis

 
#2 | Fri, 03-20-09 08:45 | Jeffrey Mills

In Lem's "The Invincible" the swarm had not been created as is but had evolved to be. They had *won out* over the huge monolithic intelligences that stood in rusty ruin. They posed a challenge to the heavily armed humans as well.

 

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