Palo Alto sits at the center of Silicon Valley as the world capital of technological development. In the final decades of the twentieth century, Xerox’s PARC labs held an eminent place within its culture and helped expand ideas like Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) and “ubiquitous computing.” The man who coined the latter phrase is Mark Weiser, a late scholar whose work I was not intimately acquainted with until reading this work. In this biography of an influential technologist, Tinnell provides a biography of a man as moved by philosophy as by technology, who died too early in life from stomach cancer.
The son of a science professor, Weiser entered college to study philosophy before transferring and studying computers all the way through a doctorate. Exposed to computers through his father, he had fiddled with them computers as a grade-school student. His philosophical explorations led him to move on from a Cartesian view of life (where everything exists in mental maps, compatible with a digital view of the world) to one more inspired by Martin Heidegger. The German Heidegger, in his classic Being and Time, saw humans as “beings in the world” who are always engaged in life instead of being a disinterested observers. Weiser latched onto Heidegger’s view as a way to explain how technology should help human efforts. Technology should not be an all-knowing “butler” (as classic AI purports) but as a calm, silent tool in the background to make our lives easier.
Weiser developed this understanding during the heyday of Xerox PARC labs, which is featured prominently in this biography. The lab put together elite basic researchers in technology and funded their explorations amply. They focused on developing ideas about technology (like GUIs popularized in Windows or MacOS or calm technology) and stayed away from firm rights of intellectual property. Their spirit of collaboration is borne through this book and easily could comprise its main topic, instead of Weiser. Weiser led their computer science lab and popularized concepts around “ubiquitous computing” (making computers in all sorts of devices) and the Internet of Things. In many ways, his vision has still not been fully birthed into existence and is at war with “classic AI” (seen in MIT’s Media Lab) for cultural supremacy. He saw, earlier than most, the problems with a society observed 24-7 by digital data collection.
Those, like myself, who are involved in developing software and technology should read this work, without a doubt. Understanding original ideas in depth is necessary to take full advantage of building upon them in one’s work. Though a writer and not a technologist, Tinnell shows a deep understanding of the history of technology. He also picks up on nuances in Weiser’s thought that most technologists would not appreciate. Thus, this book stands poised to exert strong influence on the IT industry, a dominant force in the modern world. It has impacted how I will pursue my work developing “smart” technologies, and I hope it will inspire others along the way.
The Philosopher of Palo Alto: Mark Weiser, Xerox PARC, and the Original Internet of Things
By John Tinnell
Copyright (c) 2023
University of Chicago Press
ISBN13 9780226757209
Page Count: 368
Genre: Biography, History of Technology
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