One standout article (among many worthy pieces) is this article on massively multiplayer online role-playing games written by Vernor Vinge, the computer scientist and Hugo-award winning science fiction writer who coined the term "Singularity" and wrote the absolutely seminal proto-cyberpunk story True Names.

How can we prepare for such a future? Perhaps that is the most important research project for our creativity machine. We need to exploit the growing sensor/effector layer to make the world itself a real-time database. In the social, human layers of the Internet, we need to devise and experiment with large-scale architectures for collaboration. We need linguists and artificial-intelligence researchers to extend the capabilities of search engines and social networks to produce services that can bridge barriers created by technical jargon and forge links between unrelated specialties, bringing research groups with complementary problems and solutions together — even when those groups have not noticed the possibility of collaboration. In the end, computers plus networks plus people add up to something significantly greater than the parts. The ensemble eventually grows beyond human creativity. To become what? We can't know until we get there.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:19:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments