Douglas C. Engelbart - Director, Bootstrap Institute and Keynote Hypertext 2004
- Simon Harper:
- Firstly, can I ask if you're a regular visitor to the Hypertext Conference?
- Doug Engelbart:
- No, sorry to say. Possibly been over a decade; I think in Texas, and Tim B-L described the plans that turned into the WWW.
- Simon:
- What attracted you to attend 'Hypertext' this year?
- Doug:
- Hmm: Feeling that there was too much that I somehow haven't been able to communicate, about the whole "Bootstrap" set of goals and opportunities.
- Simon:
- You're now a famous world class computer scientist (I would also say visionary) but you seem to have always been focused to helping people and community. Do you think the values of your youth in rural Oregon influenced your research interest?
- Doug:
- Definitely. Also the "country boy" orientation -- not quite understanding how other people see the world.
- Simon:
- Is the state of technology, hypertext, and the web in 2004 as you envisioned earlier in your career, with regard to augmenting human intellect?
- Doug:
- Actually, NO! Not nearly the progress toward Augmenting our Collective IQ; and perhaps worse, not nearly the perception of size and importance of the potential gain that's there to pursue -- nor, I might add, not nearly the concern about how critical to civilization's survival and enrichment such gains would be.
- Simon:
- What would be the key thing you would change with regard to the state of technology today?
- Doug:
- Hmm..mm: Assume we're speaking of IT? I'd start with the last answer; and want to see explicit intent w.r. to: significantly improving Collective IQ; AND, frank appraisal of the scale of change (degree, rate, scope, world-population involvement, etc.); AND explicit cultivation of the STRATEGIC concepts appropriate for the n-dimensional large-scale challenge.
AND ... appreciation that at these LARGE-scale innovative frontiers, the best that can be done (until we get a lot smarter collectively) is to find/evolve the best Improvement Infrastructure in our society that can Facilitate the Co-Evolution of all the Human- and Tool-system innovations associated with the targeted new levels of human capability. - Simon:
- If you have the choice, would you dis-invent any technological advancement?
- Doug:
- Hmm -- perhaps some that human's world society is not yet mature enough to handle safely. E.g., atomic energy and weaponry, perhaps nanotechnology's Assemblers. (Think of 8-yr-old kids playing with fire.)
- Simon:
- What research areas are you interested in at the moment and what upcoming areas are you excited about?
- Doug:
- In terms of the concepts and innovations I've been trying to communicate to the world, I seriously feel that I have been a persistent failure. Meanwhile concepts and innovations have been maturing, and some new innovations bolster the strategic framework.
Facilitating the "co-evolution" of technology AND the many social, business, human-skill and -practices changes involved in gaining the real improvements offered by technology is absolute key.
For a basic summary of "strategic framework" on web, see "Toward High-Performance Organizations, A Strategic Role for Groupware" 1992.
Quite a bit of conceptual refinement since then, but basics essentially the same. Re "recent" additions -- the HyperScope innovation carries a lot of promise for facilitating evolution. See http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/bi-2120.html. Have some funding, counting on describing it (including basic demonstration) at HT04. - Simon:
- Finally, will you be presenting the SIGWEB 'Doug Engelbart' Award this year at 'Hypertext'?
- Doug:
- [Sly..] Maybe, but it's up to Jim Whitehead and the HT04 planners.
Jim tells use that 'I am definitely planning on having Doug present the 'Engelbart' award at the conference -- you can count on it!'
In the early 1960s, Engelbart began the Augmentation Research Centre (ARC), a development environment at the Stanford Research Institute. Here, he and his colleagues (William K. English and John F. Rulifson) created the On-Line System (NLS), the world's first implementation of what was to be called hypertext. Yet this was only a small part of what ARC was about. As he states in "Working Together," Engelbart was particularly concerned with "asynchronous collaboration among teams distributed geographically". This endeavour is part of the study of Computer Supported Co-operative Work (CSCW); software which supports this goal is often called groupware. Engelbart's work directly influenced the research at Xerox PARC, which in turn was the inspiration for Apple Computers. Ted Nelson cites him as a major influence. In 1991, Engelbart and his colleagues were given the ACM Software System Award for their work on NLS.
Recently, Engelbart has been working at Stanford University, where he is director of the Bootstrap Project. As explained in "On Bootstrapping," the focus of this work is to bring together computer vendors, developers, and end-users to work in commonality on the technology that today's rapidly changing world requires.
Recently, Engelbart has been working at Stanford University, where he is director of the Bootstrap Project. As explained in "On Bootstrapping," the focus of this work is to bring together computer vendors, developers, and end-users to work in commonality on the technology that today's rapidly changing world requires.
M: S Harper on 29 Mar 2004
C: S Harper on 27 Nov 2003
C: S Harper on 27 Nov 2003