We raise one or two in a palace that rivals that of the kings of medieval Europe. This affluence was made possible by the industrial revolution, but it pales in comparison to the information revolution that we are immersed in now. In the information revolution, we have learned to add artificial intelligence to the machines we create. The F-16, B2, and other systems cannot function without the aid of computers. They hold the distilled human knowledge of pilots, engineers, programmers, and others who have created software to anticipate and react to every conceivable situation.
Software controls our cars, microwaves, televisions, phones, and washing machines.
We fantasize of a day when computers will become self-aware like Data on the Starship Enterprise. The information revolution is dependent upon computer systems with the capacity to store, retrieve, and analyze massive amounts of data and information. Computer systems are controlled by software created by humans using a higher order language to communicate their instructions to the computer. Ultimately, all computer languages must be broken down into patterns of ones and zeroes for the computer to execute them. Similarly, in the biological world, DNA stores our genetic makeup in a specific pattern that defines how our bodies function.