The following excerpts were selected from an engaging discussion which took place on the evening of 30 April 1996 at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's old homestead near Charlottesville, Virginia. The Fellows gathered about Jefferson's table to discuss the revolution in information technology and computation which they helped enable. An edited transcript of the discussion (63K) is available here.
GORDON BELL
On the Internet
What's interesting about the Internet is that it totally flattens the earth. Bits can flow anywhere.
SEYMOUR CRAY
On Nationalism
"I hope [new access to information] breaks down our nationalistic spirit, because it seems to me our standard of living has reached the point where we ought to be able to spend a little time thinking about others. And I think this is the vehicle. I think this will do it . . . We will be able to bring our bodies together as well as our spirits."
On Challenges
We need challenges as human beings, clearly. If we don't find one we'll fight with each other to make a challenge. And if we could have physical challenge or an external challenge where we would all share the same concerns, it would rapidly accelerate change.
On Security
We're going to have cryptography that no one will break.
On Biotechnology
I think that when we tire of making smaller and smaller silicon because it's too challenging to make worthwhile progress. . . then we're going to find two things. We're going to come face to face with the uncertainty principle . . . and face to face with life forces, because they are there. And when all that happens we're going to find the biologists in these 10 years are going to do incredible and frightening things with what they are already tinkering with. They are going to make both biological monsters and nonbiological monsters for us. But some good will come out of it because we're going to find that we can do pattern recognition.
JAY FORRESTER
On Frontiers
We've not run out of frontiers. We have the frontiers of understanding our social and economic systems, which are the source of our major difficulties.
On Education
Our observation in dealing with students . . . is that there is no correlation between academic ranking and how well the students will do when it comes to understanding complex systems. The ones at the bottom are apt to be at the bottom only because they see the education as irrelevant; they see it as not applying to them, they are disinterested in it. As soon as they latch onto something that really is exciting and relevant and fits their lives, they come right up to the top.
On Change
If you're going to change a whole set of social attitudes, the first thing will be the counter force of resistance. And I'm not sure that if in the long run you're better off trying to beat down the counter force or just giving it time to choke on its own momentum. . .
On The Internet
I think the Internet is something of a fad. I doubt that we're going to see a continuation of the momentum that we have seen in the last 5 years with respect to the World Wide Web and the Internet. I mean, you only have to be exposed to it for a few weeks before you find it boring and time consuming and taking your attention away from other things.
DAVID ALLISON
On Values
Do you think the Internet is going to carry not only information but also a way of thinking, a set of values? Is it going to be a way to promote democratic society worldwide, or is it value-neutral?
On Power
[Information technology] is going to threaten existing power structures. We can project that the Internet will lead to Utopia, but it's more likely--if human history is any indication--not to go that direction, particularly if we don't try to get out in front of it.
On Prospects
The question is whether information technology will be seen as part of the solution or part of the problem. Recently, information
technology and the Internet have had a pretty good press But that's
not necessarily the way it's going to be. There's a very good chance that all this information technology will be seen as part of the problem unless people . . . take responsibility for making sure that it becomes part of the solution.
ROBERT FRANKENBURG
On the Internet
The Internet today is the black and white television of 1951.
On Startup Companies
[The Internet] makes a small company every bit as "present" as the large companies. . . it shifts the economies of size, because it's hard to tell the difference between a Microsoft and a start-up company on the Internet. And that's a new frontier in and of itself.
On Jeffersonianism
The entrepreneur is today's yeoman farmer. He's not farming the land, he's farming ideas.
On Information Transfer
I think that what we're seeing is some of the tools that might help us balance the difference between push and pull. A lot of our
information systems are push systems. They push information into
our electronic or physical in box or our mail box at home, they push it over a broadcast network. We need more control. We now have some tools with the network in place to be able to say "This is what I want to know" instead of "This is what you want to tell me."
JAMES MARTIN
On Totalitarianism
As we look at the extreme growth of totalitarianism, it was always made possible by extreme distortion of information. Totalitarian governments of the past were . . . dependent upon gross misinformation. Can we have a totalitarian government in the future which has gross misinformation? I doubt it, because people are going to find out the reality.
On Business Ecosystems
The point I'm making is you're changing the nature of corporations. You are building electronic corporations, cybercorporations, if you want to use that term. One of the effects of those electronic
corporations is there is certain types of competition which becomes so intense that nobody can make a profit. We're already seeing that, and it's already beginning to bite fairly deep. This means that you are fundamentally change business ecologies, and therefore the only way to succeed is to understand the ecology that you play in, and
work out, exactly like Intel has now, how you can have the dominant position within the ecology.
ROBERT METCALFE
On Cryptography
There's a very interesting thing I hear recently, which is that we all have a moral responsibility to send all of our communications encrypted, so that the people who have a reason to send it encrypted won't stand out so much.
GORDON MOORE
On Quality of Life
But has the technology that let's you be in touch with your company anyplace, any time, made your life easier? It's made it easier for our guys to work 80 hours a week than it used to be! I used to go off on vacation in very remote areas. Nobody could ever get in touch with me when I was on vacation. I'd leave somebody else in charge, and I'd go away. Now the people that run the company read their E-mail every day, they are always available by some kind of communication thing, I'm not sure their quality of life has improved at all because of modern technology.
On Social Responsibility
I'm basically a technologist. Developing technology is what I know how to do. Figuring out what the impact of that technology is on society is not my job. If we look at developing a new product, we put down what the customer wants, what we can do, where they get together. We never put down what are the social implications of developing it.
On Corporate Responsibility
The beauty of the corporation is that it's designed to have a very specific and narrow purpose, and therefore is efficient. And our purpose is to develop the business for the benefit of the stockholders, principally, which means you have to benefit your
customers and one thing and another and employees in the process. But it's not to give to local charities, it's not to save the world, it's for the specific purpose of the corporation. And I think once you start trying to distort the purpose of the corporation you'll destroy the strength of the corporation.
On the Big Question
I think we have to back up and say what the heck is the objective we're really looking at down the road. Each of us has spent a career trying to optimize his personal situation and some boundary conditions. That's not the long-term best solution for humanity. If we really want to sit back and say how can we use this new technology to do something important, I think we've got to start by asking the question but what the heck is important?
