Kevin Kelly (1) (1952–)

Irritating and clever at times, KK wants technology to do what he says but he has to ignore so many things to pull this off. I think this is one of the books where KK is gathering his ideas into a whole. I find mysefl disagreeing most of the time but then recognising that we need this reference to argument a response.

Fun to read, short and sweet, with lots of wit and good advice. I'm a big KK fan already, though :^)

Some insights here, but also some rehash for me. If you believe everything these techno geeks say, it won’t be long before we’re living in pods with machines catering to us. Not sure I’m ready to disconnect from the real world to that extent. I was particularly taken with AI as it is already developing and search engines and such. Kelly makes a compelling case for AI sneaking up on us in very specialized forms rather than as a general human sort of intelligence.

I bought this book as soon as it was published in 1988, having read previous Whole Earth Catalogs. I fully bought into their concepts of "Access to Tools and Ideas," and sharing intellectual adventures with whoever who is interested. I wouldn't buy this today as a general resource, but I continue to page through it occasionally, wishing I could review books the way they did. That remains my aspiration.