All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
September 27th, 02007 by Alexander Rose
At the Singularity Summit earlier this month I came to see Paul Saffo’s talk. Famed as a forecaster and future thinker, I was expecting to hear what lay ahead in the world as the steepness of the technology curve continues towards cliff like proportions. Instead all were treated to a reminder that our new future is represented overwhelmingly in the negative by our artists and poets. He points out that if we can only imagine an awful techno future, that that is what we will get.
So Saffo read the one piece he could find that depicts a world run by computers in a positive light. Amazingly it was written in 01967 by someone who was likely programming computers with punch cards. It is shown in the original above and the text can be found on Saffo’s journal.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:45 am
[…] Just noticed this over at The Long Now Foundation’s blog: […]
September 28th, 2007 at 6:49 am
I’ve always been a fan of Brautigan’s work. There is something about his direct, simple style that I really dig. Thanks for posting this.
September 30th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I attended both days and all sessions of the Singularity Summit and my thought at the time was that Saffo’s talk was the most striking, mainly because of its contrast but also because of its reminder to the tech types to include thoughts and ideas of others - particularly the writers and artists - since we all have a stake in the game.
October 1st, 2007 at 9:24 am
Naw, the poet was Richard Brautigan, a full-on flower-generation poet, who penned the best poetry book of that era, TROUTFISHING IN AMERICA. I featured the book and the machines-of-loving-grace poem in the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.
Richard could not code. I’m not sure he knew any computers personally.
December 16th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Actually, I think this Brautigan poem was in The Pill vs. the Springfield Mine Disaster, and in an earlier collection named after the poem.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
This piece of poetry came out in 1967 and quite obviously anyone can look it up on the Internet. We “locals”, (from Northern California) worshiped Richard Brautigan, at least if you were young and in North Beach, or the Haight-Ashbury… The poem itself spoke of wonderment and eagerness. The hope of possible things to come….
At the time, I doubt Richard had actually seen a computer, (other than photos), because at the time, they were immobile, and still took up entire rooms, or at least large dedicated areas.
Richard wasn’t a programmer, he had his own personal “code”….
Alas, poor Richard shot himself at Stinson Beach late one night. A suicide….
As for computers… I cut and pasted the poem to “Word”…. “it” promptly wanted to “correct” it….(the poem…).