Anything invented between the ages of 15 to 35 is cutting edge and very cool. Michael Dertouzos clearly lives in the 50s, and the automobile metaphor is the perfect fit for the computing platform that his generation wants to see. It should be big, lumbering, easy to fix, and we should be able to operate it with little or no training. Instead, Michael, you find yourself living in a world which is complex, rich in information, and accelerating the rate at which it changes. The younger generation is equipped to deal with this in part because they are learning how the Internet and computers work.
Environment has an enormously powerful effect on the formation of the human brain.
The generation growing up with computers today revels in the complexity because it gives them a form of power over the generation ahead of them, much as access to a car gave power to the generation coming of age in the 50s. In one regard, though, I agree with Dertouzos. Computers do not need to become like automobiles, specific functional behavior of computers needs to become like the automobile -functional behavior that we reuse on a constant basis and whose operation should become invisible to us. I ignore the invisible inner workings of these computers and simple interact with them at the steering wheel. Instead of arguing that the desktop computer interface should become dumbed down, a more interesting discussion would be about how we, as a society and a world, are going to help bring all of our citizens into the information age.