Rise of the Machines

From The New York Times:

...In a 1981 documentary called "The Day After Trinity," Freeman Dyson, a reigning gray eminence of math and theoretical physics, as well as an ardent proponent of nuclear disarmament, described the seductive power that brought us the ability to create atomic energy out of nothing. "I have felt it myself," he warned. "The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it's there in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do your bidding. To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our troubles—this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds."

...As the current financial crisis spreads (like a computer virus) on the earth's nervous system (the Internet), it's worth asking if we have somehow managed to colossally outsmart ourselves using computers. After all, the Wall Street titans loved swaps and derivatives because they were totally unregulated by humans. That left nobody but the machines in charge. How fitting then, that almost 30 years after Freeman Dyson described the almost unspeakable urges of the nuclear geeks creating illimitable energy out of equations, his son, George Dyson, has written an essay (published at Edge.org) warning about a different strain of technical arrogance that has brought the entire planet to the brink of financial destruction. George Dyson is an historian of technology and the author of "Darwin Among the Machines," a book that warned us a decade ago that it was only a matter of time before technology out-evolves us and takes over.

His new essay—"Economic Dis-Equilibrium: Can You Have Your House and Spend It Too?"—begins with a history of "stock," originally a stick of hazel, willow or alder wood, inscribed with notches indicating monetary amounts and dates.

More here.