Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean - Softcover

Gelernter, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019507906X ISBN 13: 9780195079067

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1993

Synopsis

Technology doesn't flow smoothly; it's the big surprises that matter, and Yale computer expert David Gelernter sees one such giant leap right on the horizon. Today's small scale software programs are about to be joined by vast public software works that will revolutionize computing and transform society as a whole. One such vast program is the "Mirror World."
Imagine looking at your computer screen and seeing reality--an image of your city, for instance, complete with moving traffic patterns, or a picture that sketches the state of an entire far-flung corporation at this second. These representations are called Mirror Worlds, and according to Gelernter they will soon be available to everyone. Mirror Worlds are high-tech voodoo dolls: by interacting with the images, you interact with reality. Indeed, Mirror Worlds will revolutionize the use of computers, transforming them from (mere) handy tools to crystal balls which will allow us to see the world more vividly and see into it more deeply. Reality will be replaced gradually, piece-by-piece, by a software imitation; we will live inside the imitation; and the surprising thing is--this will be a great humanistic advance. We gain control over our world, plus a huge new measure of insight and vision.
In this fascinating book--part speculation, part explanation--Gelernter takes us on a tour of the computer technology of the near future. Mirror Worlds, he contends, will allow us to explore the world in unprecedented depth and detail without ever changing out of our pajamas. A hospital administrator might wander through an entire medical complex via a desktop computer. Any citizen might explore the performance of the local schools, chat electronically with teachers and other Mirror World visitors, plant software agents to report back on interesting topics; decide to run for the local school board, hire a campaign manager, and conduct the better part of the campaign itself--all by interacting with the Mirror World.
Gelernter doesn't just speculate about how this amazing new software will be used--he shows us how it will be made, explaining carefully and in detail how to build a Mirror World using technology already available. We learn about "disembodied machines," "trellises," "ensembles," and other computer components which sound obscure, but which Gelernter explains using familiar metaphors and terms. (He tells us that a Mirror World is a microcosm just like a Japanese garden or a Gothic cathedral, and that a computer program is translated by the computer in the same way a symphony is translated by a violinist into music.)
Mirror Worlds offers a lucid and humanistic account of the coming software revolution, told by a computer scientist at the cutting edge of his field.

About this title

About the Author

David Gelernter is Associate Professor of Computer Science at Yale University and an expert in programming languages and methods, and in artificial intelligence.

From Kirkus Reviews

Within ten years, Gelernter (Computer Science/Yale) predicts here, scientists will deploy computer systems able to capture extensive data about a particular ``reality'' (hospital, city, etc.), and to present a constantly updated model on a desktop computer. ``A Mirror World is some huge institution's moving, true-to- life mirror image trapped inside a computer--where you can see and grasp it whole,'' Gelernter writes. Citizens will be able to visit these computer models like public squares, gaining unprecedented access to data on what's going on (and the officials in charge, the author intimates, will presumably welcome a chance to have their performance monitored). Building such mirror worlds will be extraordinarily difficult: streams and rivers of raw data need to be constantly flowing; thousands of computers must process the data in parallel fashion; and tying it all together will demand new kinds of software of immense complexity. Gelernter explains clearly the problems to be solved and describes pieces of the technology already working in research labs. Left unchallenged is his assumption that such technology will remain benign--giving honest folk a way of grasping an ever-more complex world instead of providing the powerful owners of such technology a superb way to distort and control ``reality.'' Plausible but potentially frightening view of what the future could hold if those who view ``reality'' as merely a vast array of numbers waiting to be crunched have their way. (Twenty illustrations--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 019507906X
• ISBN 13: 9780195079067
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256