SIEMENS

You are unhappy with the current state of communications and information technology. Why is that?

Gelernter: The Internet and our modern means of communication still need to be improved. The problem is that humans are expected to adapt to technology, and not the other way around, as it should be.

Are you saying the iPhone and Android phones are not user-friendly?

Gelernter: Sure, they are nice designs, but through these devices we are confronted with an ever faster flow of information. This “cyberpulse” cannot be exactly quantified, but it can certainly be described. A century ago we still received information in the shape of handwritten letters, newspapers, books, and telegrams. Two or three generations ago these media were joined by phone calls, radio, and television. Today there is e-mail, online blogs, news and other websites, text messages, voice mail, and social networks. This speed and information density is not sustainable in the long run — people’s receptivity has natural limits.

How should we handle it? Go on an information diet?

Gelernter: It wouldn't hurt, but ultimately the technology itself needs improving, by means of a simplifying level superimposed on all the various news and communication channels we live with. I call it a "lifestream" — it's the story of our lives in digital form. Every digital document I’ve ever created or received — all of my text documents, photographs, e-mails, my own entries on Facebook, Twitter, and so on — all that will be represented in a single data flow in the cloud, which I can access from anywhere and from any device. My graduate students and I developed these ideas in the early 1990s, but the time wasn’t ripe for it.

But wouldn’t we have to adjust to that too, since nothing like it existed before?

Gelernter: I don’t see any problem there. After all, the lifestream tells stories — and that’s one of the most natural human occupations.

Is a lifestream something like a timeline on Facebook?

Gelernter: Yes, but the lifestream should not be owned by any company. In the long run, this would change our understanding of the Web. We wouldn’t see it any longer as static, but as a river — like a power grid that provides us with electricity when we need it. When I work on a presentation, I’ll see everything related to the project — notes, e-mails, data from the Internet. I can take an e-mail I don’t want to reply to right now and push it along the timeline into the future. The current situation, in contrast, is totally unsatisfactory.

Would the Internet of Things also be integrated?

Gelernter: Of course. One idea in my book Mirror Worlds (1991), was that the virtual world would reflect the real world. You see that already when your navigation software shows where to expect a traffic jam. In the future, my household appliances could provide me with information in exactly the same way.

And what about robots?

Gelernter: Robotics is physical, so it’s developing at a slower pace than virtual space. Also, the pursuit of AI is far less ambitious today than it was 20 years ago. After all, it’s very difficult, if not actually impossible, to replicate the human brain in a machine.

If our world is reflected entirely online, what will happen to our privacy?

Gelernter: Social networks have not created the trend toward self-exposure — the environment has long promoted the abandonment of privacy. Autobiographical writings have been bestsellers ever since Rousseau. Facebook etc. have simply given people a new platform for being open about themselves. In 1996 an American college student, Jennifer Ringley, caused an uproar by broadcasting her private life via a webcam in her dorm room for all the world to see, including intimate moments. Today no one would care about that.

How public would this lifestream be?

Gelernter: The way I see it, it would initially be provided by Lifestream Inc. — a company I co-founded in New Haven. We are now completing the first software package, which we expect to launch on the market at the end of 2012. But we don’t want to control it. The exact specifications of the software would be public. Some elements in this lifestream are private — what the user decides to make public would be accessible to everyone.

Have we sacrificed something as a result of communications technology?

Gelernter: Yes — immensely. Modern information and communication media promote a short attention span and a superficial understanding of the world. The really important achievements of humanity are the artistic, religious, scientific, medical, philosophical ones. If modern technologies don’t help us understand these achievements better, they’re ultimately not worth much.

It sounds as if you’re promoting a classic conservative critique of modernity.

Gelernter: There have always been reactionary tendencies that oppose new developments. For example, in the 1950s and 1960s many people criticized television. But it’s a double-edged sword — there’s a lot of garbage on TV, but there are also some good programs. It all depends on how we use things. That’s why modern technologies have to be built in such a way that they support us instead of dominating us.

Do you see a risk that the trash could gain the upper hand?

Gelernter: It used to be that almost every student had heard of the Bauhaus; today there are only a few. Wittgenstein, who in the eyes of many is the most important philosopher of the 20th century, is also unknown to many. Today you can look up everything online, but we have to consider what today’s young minds never get to know because they are not confronted with it. I believe there is good reason to reconsider the value of books in education and training. A book is easy to use, durable, well adapted to the pace at which we take in and understand information — and there’s less room for distraction.

A childhood without computers? Are you kidding?

Gelernter: You have to see it differently. It would be a great loss to forgo books. But as with television, it makes no sense to ban computers or iPads. Instead, we should improve their design. So much emphasis is placed on design in Europe — so I find it surprising that so little momentum comes from there in terms of the design of cell phones, tablet computers, and their user interfaces.