And to be fair, I really ought to address the stated panel topic of personal information machines. I'm gonna give it a shot, but I want to try this from an unusual perspective. I want to talk about money. You wouldn't guess it sometimes to hear some people talk, but we don't live in a technocratic society. We live in an advanced capitalist society.
People talk a lot about the power and glory of specialized knowledge and technical expertise.
And it's true there's a Library OF Congress. The nature of our society affects the nature of our technology. But as a society we don't develop technologies to their ultimate ends. Only engineers are interested in that kind of technical sweetness, and engineers generally have their paychecks signed by CEOs and stockholders. We don't pursue ultimate technologies.