Virtual pioneer Jaron Lanier warns: Machines make bad masters

Mon, 02/08/2010 - 04:32 - NLN

"People have to be able to make money off their brains and their hearts," Jaron Lanier was telling me. "Or else we're all going to starve, and it's the machines that'll get good."

It sounded a little bit like Dickens, and a little bit like a line from the "Terminator" movies. But it was all reality, coming from a true computing pioneer and one of modern technology's most insightful critics.

Lanier, 49, has been pondering the effect that the World Wide Web -- its ideology as well as its design -- has had on creativity, society and commerce for years.

The inquiry resulted in a book, or "manifesto" according to his own label, published this year titled "You Are Not a Gadget." The title should provide a clue that he hasn't found much to like.