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Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines
 
 

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Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines (Paperback)

by Kevin Kelly (Author) "I AM SEALED in a cottage of glass that is completely airtight ..." (more)
4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 528 pages
  • Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd; New edition edition (1 May 1995)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1857023080
  • ISBN-13: 978-1857023084
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.6 x 3.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 108,286 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #19 in  Books > Science & Nature > Popular Science > Artificial Intelligence
    #34 in  Books > Computing & Internet > Computer Science > Algorithms > Artificial Intelligence
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Product Description

Product Description
A synthesis of research and theory, this work chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the adaptability and autonomy of living organisms becomes the model for human made systems and machines. The author combines ideas from the Choas Theory, cybernetics, current thinking on evolution and research into computerized artificial life with his own experience of on-line culture to show that industrial culture is now obsolete. This book presents the prospects of imminent revolution as Kelly identifies new frontiers of thinking about biological systems that will change the way the natural world is percieved.

From the Author
Why you should read this book
This is a book about how our manufactured world has become so complex that the only way to create yet more complex things is by using the principles of biology. This means decentralized, bottom up control, evolutionary advances and error-honoring institutions. I also get into the new laws of wealth in a network-based economy, what the Biosphere 2 project in Arizona has or has not to teach us, and whether large systems can predict or be predicted. And more: restoration biology, encryption, a-life, and the lessons of hypertext. Yes, it's a romp, in 520 pages. But the best part, my friends tell me, is the 28-page annotated bibliography. If you have suspected that technology could be better, more life-like, then this book is for you. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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I AM SEALED in a cottage of glass that is completely airtight. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Get a sneak peek into the future here!, 1 Aug 2002
Although first published in 1994, this book is a must read for anyone interested in sensible futurist stuff. I have been astounded at how many of Kelly's predictions have come true over the last 8 years (I read this in '96 and have kept an eye out).

The book's style is a combination of personal observations and interviews with leaders in their field. He synthesises a number of different theories and subjects - Hive Mind, Coevolution, Emergence, Network Economics, Distributed Networks, E-Money, Genetic Algorithms, Privacy, Tipping Points and Cryptography and much more to give us a feeling of what the next 20-30 years might bring.

Kelly (executive editor of Wired magazine) has always had a knack of predicting the future with accuracy and there are plenty of predictions in this book yet to manifest.

I can't recommend Out of Control enough. Enjoy.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Painful but thought provoking evaluation of complex systems, 2 Feb 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World (Paperback)
This is the best badly written book I have read lately. Kelly's book provides an enthusiastic reflection on the evolution of complex systems, full of vivid images and provocative metaphors, yet one can't avoid the impression he wrote it down as he thought of it. Kelly is a magazine editor (Wired) and his book comes across like a 475-page magazine article -- whenever he decides to change directions mid-chapter, he simply inserts a rosette and moves on. This book and its readers would have been well served by passing the text through the hands of a demanding book editor -- the result would have been a text about 150 pages shorter and much clearer. It also would have been helpful to have had the text proofread -- I nearly tore up the book reading over and over his confused expression "hone in on", an illiterate cross between "hone" and "home in on." I don't know Kelly's educational background. Reading his book I get the impression that his formal credentials are minimal but that he's very good at finding smart people and following them around. The result is a book that chronicles the development of this field while communicating his fascination with complex concepts he just barely understands, and his dilletante's infatuation with the jargon that describes it. The ideas in this book, and particularly the juxtapositions of ideas that Kelly assembles, are well worth reading about. But a better approach might be to skim the book, noting authors and titles, and then go straight to the source material listed at length in the back.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Beehive versus Beethoven, 13 Oct 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World (Paperback)
Kelly's book is certainly thought-provoking and entertaining but in the end I couldn't escape the nagging sense that I was reading a corporate brochure commissioned by Wintel. Sure, the idea that a higher intelligence can emerge from a network of lower organisms, as a hive emerges out of a swarm of bees, can be a liberating one; as if maybe millions of bored drones keystroking in their cubicles, contrary to what common sense and Dilbert will tell you, are collectively making something brilliant.

What Kelly and other copywriters of the digital era (like Negroponte) forget is that good science writing has to have at least a healthy smidgen of skepticism, and here that might include looking at some of the bugs inherent in the system: such as what it's like to stare at a computer all day, or work in a chip factory in southeast asia, or how technology has put a lot of people out of work. Kelly forgets that hive-like societies, whether formed of bees or Microsoft employees, tend to de-value the individual at the expense of conformity. I have yet to see a human hive, networked by whatever brand of computer, that could create something like a work of art that could move me, not that such things matter anymore. I'll take Beethoven anyday.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Provoke your mind
Simply put, insirational. Programmers, designers, business leaders, inventors, thinkers, writers, architects, scientists - read this.
Published on 22 Mar 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars A must to learn how technology will change our lives
A very convincing book, describing the relationship between technology and life. It certainly helped me to further expand my thoughts on the network economy. In one word: great!
Published on 2 Sep 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended for anyone interested in the future.
Love this book. A great introduction to a world of ideas and concepts about evolution and technologies that are already shaping our (near) future. Read more
Published on 5 Mar 1999

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book but it overstays its welcome
The first few chapters of this book supplied me with the momentum to keep going. Things are not organized well enough to hold a reader's interest once the initial ideas are... Read more
Published on 24 Sep 1998

4.0 out of 5 stars Is There a Swarm in Our Future?
Kelly goes on a wide-ranging journey through evolutionary theory, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and market economics; he admits that, if "cybernetics" was... Read more
Published on 27 Aug 1998

4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable read for anyone interested in Artificial Life
The relaxed style of this book makes it very enjoyable light reading. And yet the author covers a wide range of issues in a captivating way that shows his enthusiasm for and... Read more
Published on 8 May 1998

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous book on growing scientific suspicions
The London Spectator's surprisingly enthusiastic recommendation made me buy it. The book is a great layman's guide to a coming revolution in scientific and engineering thought... Read more
Published on 18 Mar 1998

4.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring. Not for control freaks.
Inspiring tour of rapidly evolving new intellectual paradigm. Basic thrust powerful and exciting even if breathless optimism about practical applications probably overdone... Read more
Published on 25 Jun 1997

4.0 out of 5 stars think locally/act locally
A fun romp through the fringe-world of contemporary science/intellectual fads. Kelly serves up a rich cocktail of darwinism, ecology, and decentralism --- how local decisions,... Read more
Published on 9 May 1997

3.0 out of 5 stars A good book leads to other branches/trees. Kelly did that.
A truly good book carries one forward. Critics (those who can't write) are carried backwards. Out of Control carried me to Hofstadter's GOEDEL,ESCHER and BACH, as well as to... Read more
Published on 10 April 1997

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