Customer Reviews

When Things Start to Think

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When things start to think is one of the better, if not best, future-of-the-industry books of the past 12 months. First, it lacks the ego-centric writing that is the commonplace of MIT texts, which is refreshing. All too often the books coming out of MIT seem to be a self proclamation of value - "Hey, I'm important and cool, and so is my work". Gersenfeld, on the other hand, let's his work do the talking. He openly questions the appropriateness of some of his projects, and shows a

real-world appreciation of what it means to bring product to market with his "1 dollar rule" for additive technology. With the exception of a few chapters at the end of the book, it is highly readable for all people of all professions, and is a refreshing new way of approaching old issues. It also reads at times like a collection of essays, so while you will want to read it in a linear fashion, it is easy to pick up, read, put down, and pick up again. You'll find yourself wanting to do that again and again, allowing your own ideas to digest and grow.

This book does not fulfill the promise of its title, in a rambling, sometimes interesting, mostly self-serving view of the author's work and that of his colleagues at one of the world's premier labs. Lacking clear structure or drama, the book suffers further from poor writing and editing. If you're from MIT, every sentence probably makes sense -- it often sounds as if it were transcribed from a small group seminar. Instead of focusing on clarity for those outside of the tight jargon, it uses a loose, concept-by-implication presentation style with enough fuzziness to dazzle the innocent. Perhaps that explains the over-glowing reviews.

How many things think in Gershenfeld's tapestry? Not many, but I can't find them quickly again, either from memory or index.

A good book for discovering about the future directions of computer science and the things which will be coming our way some day soon from research done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Gershenfeld writes very good explanations for some very advanced research topics and their future uses. Covers a revolutionary invention known as electrophoretic paper for making an electronic book which looks exactly like a book but whose pages have the properties of a computer monitor.

An excellent book for the layperson to understand where computing is headed and where the lines between life sciences and technology blur. Gershenfeld makes it easy to understand how our lives will be affected by the incredible advances we are making in all fields of science. This book belongs on the shelf right along side Kurzweil, Norman and Metcalfe. It will round out our comprehension of the future, both near and farther out on the horizon. I learned about PEM three-dimensional printers and how they will help us model our ideas. I learned about the all too easy use of buzzwords such as "fuzzy logic" to confuse the public into thinking something "new" is happening. I learned a great new definition for religion-"Beliefs about our existence that are not falsifiable have a central place in human experience-they're called religion." And I learned about a great place for students of all backgrounds to work together for fun and maybe even profit-the Media labs at MIT. And I found an answer to a question that has long been bothering me. "Marvin Minsky believes that the study of artificial intelligence failed to live up to its promise, not because of any lack of intelligence in the programs or the programmers, but because of the limited life experience of a computer that can't see, or hear, or move." Anyone with even a hint of questions about the future and what it might hold for us should pick up this book. It is marvelous reading, despite the weight of the subject matter!

Neil provided me a draft copy of this book, which I read on the plane after a regular visit to the Media Lab, as a sponsor of the "Things That Think" program. It is pure Gershenfeld, always looking at everyday things from the persective of a futurist. Few experienced in the contemporary and strongly overlapping fields of microelectronics and AI need much convincing that we are only at the beginning of what will be a long and ever-unfolding history of commonplace things that think, in a way that may often be far more limited than human thinking but precisely because of this focus is valuable. Thus, the everyday calculator "knows" a lot more about mathematical algorithms than most of us (who can recall how to evaluate a simple square root?) but it's not very good at poetry.

Gershenfeld reminds us that computers have only just begun to intrude into a domain once the sole province of humans (more generally, the animal kingdom), namely the realm of perception, thought and cognition. Already, they are vastly better at remembering massive amounts of information than we, but have a long way to go before exhibting something like human intelligence. To some extent, this is by design: we have not yet had the courage to endow machines with free will, but that day must come.

This brief apology for a review is to propose a slightly different perspective than that of the other reviewers, who stress the digital nature of these thinking things. Many people, including myself, feel that the road to "true thinking" and more particularly, to machine consciousness, will be by a stronger utilization of techniques that are popularly regarded as obsolete, namely, those based strongly on analog signal processing. True neural networks are of this sort, and there are sound philosophical reasons for claiming that the "von Neumann" architecture of a digital computer can never be conscious. Knowing about the Media Lab work first hand, I can say that Dr. Gershenfeld is well aware that analog techniques are going to be a central theme of the Thinking Things that we will soon be taking for granted. This is not only true in the domain of cognition but most especially in perception, which is about the experiencing of one's environment. This is almost entirely an exercise in analog processing of signals, which is far from a dying art.

Submitted by Dr. Barrie Gilbert, Analog Devices Inc., Corporate sponsor of the THINGS THAT THINK pgogram

Neil Gershenfeld uses his experiences in The Media Lab to provide a glimpse of what technology can do and how there is a long way to travel in mindset before it becomes even more useful to us in our daily routines. Even 5 years after its publication date, the insights are fresh and the examples and stories are relevant. I appreciated the intoduction of concepts such as atom-dollars and bit-dollars and the idea of a do-tank. The logical case that assigns the blame for telemarketing to Pope Leo X made me smile.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wonders why his or her VCR isn't smart enough to tell them the time rather than the other way around and who questions why technology hasn't yet evolved to more transparency and provided things with the ability to think about simple but useful tasks that they can accomplish without us having to give specific instructions every time.

When I first read the book, I was astonished at how intuitive everything was - well explained, well thought out, and extremely well written.

I still look at the newspaper on my coffee table and wait for the day that it can do the tricks that the author suggested! If you're into technology, and are even remotely involved with the internet, this book is for you...

And it will be for your children.

This isn't a book about "things" starting to think, or even computers starting to think. It's about different ways to integrate computing power into our lives so the distinction about "what is a computer" starts to blur.

Wearable computers, smart coffepots, tennis shoes with CPUs, all of these are ideas which have become much more accepted (and real) in the 5 years since this book was published.

There are two directions computing can grow in the future -- automating tasks we already do (like the above) or, more promisingly, creating new tasks which take advantage of the advantages of computing power. Gershenfeld barely touches on the latter, even though examples are all around us (like the internet). Futurists working on films like Blade Runner, Demolition Man and Minority Report have had more to say. It is only when computing power starts to change the way we live our lives -- for better or worse -- that the true digital revolution will occur.

And it probably will be televised.

When Things Start to Think offers a provocative, if biased, view of the future of computers in our lives. With his chatty tone, his disdain for crashes and viruses, and his insistence that computers should serve humanity rather than the other way around, Gershenfeld is a wonderful tour guide through his vision of digital nirvana. While you may not agree that the world needs coffee cups talking to coffee makers, it's hard not to come up with a personal laundry list of toys and snappy apps that could make one's life that much easier. This tension between too much technology and not enough, the distance between stupid toys and killer gadgets -- this is the gulf that we, and Gershenfeld, straddle. See the full review at BETA Online.

It's hard to provide a real expectation with a book like this. It's touching a very interesting subject and yet, it cannot really go in full technical details on how to do it. My personal expectations on this book were about looking at technology by hard technology fan rather than money-driven projects or from consultants.

This book, though a bit of simple light read, will show current and upcoming technologies in a raw science form; why & simple how those master scientists are creating outstanding technology by first having fun and at looking at simple problems.

Want to get a feel about the possible next eBook? It will explain how this could happen. Want to see what a computer chip in your shoe could give to you? You will read the why.

It was a delight to see that there are masterminds behind the annoying fact that computers are dumb. too dumb. The potential to make them live and help the humanity is there and When Things Start to Think is trying to convey that is a simple & easy read for a broad audience.