Thinking Robots, an Aware Internet, and Cyberpunk Librarians: The 1992 Lita President's Program : Presentations by Hans Moravec, Bruce Sterling, and (LITA president's series) [Paperback]

R. Bruce Miller (Author), Milton T. Wolf (Editor), David Brin (Contributor)

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Library & Information (September 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0838976255
• ISBN-13: 978-0838976258
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,005,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good at the time, but..., October 30, 2000

By 

John Ronald (Sugar Land, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thinking Robots, an Aware Internet, and Cyberpunk Librarians: The 1992 Lita President's Program : Presentations by Hans Moravec, Bruce Sterling, and (LITA president's series) (Paperback)

I remember reading this book circa 1994 as a graduate student at Rice University. It was very interesting, and I found Bruce Sterling's praise of librarians & libraries and the importance of freedom of information very eloquent and uplifting. Hans Moravec, on the other hand, I find to be one sick puppy and scary to boot. He's most famous for wanting to be able to download his consciousness into a computer and attain "virtual immortality". Having read more recent works, such as Theodore Roszack's critical study _The Cult of Information_, I can see that Moravec's ideas are just idle fantasy now...probably never realizable. David Brin also had some very sensitive, cautious words, which I deeply appreciated. I think this book was a rare convergence of librarians & SF writers in the time of the early 90s when Cyberpunk was all the rage (it's not dead yet, but it's not as BIG as it was then, either) and it was easy to be giddy about technology, etc. The internet was still young then. I think we've learned a great deal more and are much more realistic now than when the summary of this conference was put together in book form...This book is now pretty much a historical document more than it is anything useful for a 21st century contemporary reader.