“We are living through a movement from an organic industrial society to a polymorphous information system – from all work to all play, a deadly game.” Donna Haraway, The Cyborg Manifesto

In his final book, published in 1964 at the height of the postwar industrial boom under the title of God & Golem, Inc., the scientist Norbert Wiener asked a question: “Can God play a significant game with his own creature? Can any creator, even a limited one, play a significant game with his own creature?”1 The example he used was trivial: a computer program for playing checkers, written by A.L. Samuel of the IBM corporation. As for the definition of “significant,” it’s not particularly clear: but Wiener does observe that as in the contest between God and Lucifer, the programmer may well be the one to lose.” Continue reading Future Map by Brian Holmes.