Who IS Gregory J. E. Rawlins?

Q:You grew up in Trinidad and schooled in Canada. How did this background inform your course of study and choice of career?

Gosh, in so many ways I can't begin to know. Ever since I was a child I wanted to be a mathematician, or more generally a scientist, then after being exposed to computers I fell in love with them and wanted to be around them all the time. Going to Canada made that much easier. On the other hand, much of my attitudes about science, people, society, and life were formed when I was very young, certainly no older than twelve, and those attitudes are largely a product of my family's interest in academic success, coupled with a typically British elitist education.

Q: Why did you decide to relocate to the U.S.?

Opportunity. The U.S. is such a large market compared to either Canada, the U.K., or Trinidad that it was really only a question of getting up enough courage to brave the wilds of America to come here. Each change of country has been a step up in challenge, primarily because of populations: 1 million in Trinidad, 25 million in Canada, 250 million in the States.

Q: What led you to the field of computer science?

Math was always my love and that led to computing. But the real reason is that computing is all about power. From my very first exposure I fell deeply in love with that power. Controlling a massive and expensive machine all by myself (that was what it was like in the 70s) was an unmatched experience. Then too there was the attraction of being forced to think as rigourously as it is possible for a human being to be. By the early 80s I felt even more special because I began to see some of the consequences of computers in the larger society.

Q: Did your love of science fiction play a deciding role in your life and career choices?

Oh, most definitely. I've been reading science fiction more or less since I could read (my parents always had a large library and encouraged us to read whatever we wanted to). I first got seriously interested in science through science fiction when I was about 8 or 9, and science fiction has also immesurably influenced my views on the universe and our place in it. Science fiction led to science, and science led to computing.

Q: Why academia?

Freedom. I don't know if I could ever work for someone else at fixed hours on prefixed projects. The ability to think and do whatever I want whenever I want is (nearly) priceless. Of course, if someone offered me enough money, then that same freedom is purchasable, but it would have to be an awful lot of money.

Q: Are you the first member of your family to take an active interest in the world of computing, or was there a precedent?

I was the first. Not only to get into computing, but also the first to get a PhD. My parents had to stop at high school, my aunts and uncles had all stopped at at most the Masters level and no one did science. It bothers me that none of the next generation of my family are getting into science, but of course there's nothing I can do about it.

Q: You've said that you grew up in a mixed family and a mixed universe. What do you mean by that?

Trinidad is a true melting pot; all races are mixed together in families and have been for generations. While racial friction is non-zero, most people are of mixed descent. I, for example, descend from black, white, Indian, and (probably) Arawak Indians, a common heritage in Trinidad. That makes any kind of racism difficult. The States needs a few more hundred years of simmering to get that far along.

Q: You have said in the past that the U.S. is preoccupied with race. How have your experiences differed in the States from your experiences elsewhere?

Actually it's not that bad for me personally. But then I'm isolated from any real problems because of my family support, my foreign upbringing, my education, my income, and my status as a professor. However, for many other blacks in America I think the situation is desperate and there seems to be no end to the divisions in our society. Many American blacks lack the opportunity to get my education and consequently are shut out of the larger society.

Q: Who are your role models?

Richard Feynmann, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, and Alan Turing, the seminal thinker in computer science, are my two main science role models. I wish I was as brilliant as they were, but failing that, I find their views on life and science exactly in consonance with mine. When I was growing up my heroes were Leonard Euler, Isaac Newton, and Karl Friedrich Gauss, all mathematicians. Then there was H. G Wells and Robert Heinlein in science fiction, and Voltaire in philosophy, who inspired me in more general ways. Learning to see humanity as just another animal species ­ and a flawed one at that ­ and to see the universe as a wonderful place that can be explained in mechanical terms is their gift to me.

Q: Tell us about your interest in chess. Do you consider the lessons it teaches about tactics, strategy, and logic to have been instrumental in your study and work with computers?

Nope, I just have fun playing it. I'm only a mediocre player (I'm rated about 1900 elo) but the mixture of exacting thinking and wild brilliancies displayed by the best players (particularly Alexander Alekhine and Mikhail Tal) is a sort of metaphor for what I think is necessary to do good work. You need the ability to work through something in great detail, but you also need the ability to step away and see things fresh. The left brain and the right brain each have their parts to play.

Q: How did you develop a fascination with Japanese anime?

A graduate student of mine, Steve Ryner, innoculated me with the virus and I've since passed it on to my friends and students. The best anime is simply fantastic. They're works of art both in their approach to the material and in their enormous attention to detail.

Q: Can you recommend any particular examples?

I particularly recommend Kiki's Delivery Service and the 96 episode Maison Ikoku, but there are hundreds of wonderful films, many much better than anything Disney has ever produced. Anime has the great advantage that so much of it is produced, and for such widely varying audiences, that there's something for everyone. Animation in Japan isn't just for children as most of it is here.

Q: What inspired you to write your two recent books, Moths to the Flame and Slaves of the Machine?

That's a simple question with a long and complex answer. One strand of the answer is that in 1991 I wrote a white paper on the future of publishing that attracted a lot of attention in the publishing world. That in turn got me invited to speak at conferences I would normally never have been to, and there I met many people who were more non-technical and business-oriented than I was used to. Trying to explain to them what I saw as the inevitable future of publishing sowed the seeds of my interest in speaking in a plain, direct voice about technology and its likely effects on the future. That in turn led to the books when, for other reasons, my interest in the social consequences of computers widened beyond their effects on just books.

Q: What would you like the reader to remember about your books - the lasting impression?

That change is unavoidable and that technology is not our enemy.

Q: How do your two recent books relate to each other? Should they be viewed and read as companions?

Yes. They're two petals of one flower. I wanted to write about the likely social consequences of computers on human society and their likely impact on the future of humanity (the topics of "Moths"), but to do so I felt it necessary to explain what they were and were not capable of. Most people, I felt, would reject what I had to say because the common understanding of what computers are makes the future capabilities I describe seem farfetched. That led to a detailed, but I hope enjoyable, description of what they are (as opposed to what most poeple think they are), how they got to be that way, and what they're likely to develop into. Those are the topics of Slaves.

Q: What impression would you hope that people who have read these books will walk away with about you or your personality?

I hope that they think of me as open to new ideas and forward thinking. I also hope that they think of me as part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Q: What message would you communicate if asked to summarize your newest book, Slaves of the Machine?

Computers are growing ever more complicated and competent a lot faster than most of us suppose, and soon we will be faced with a deep moral dilemma about their use. Within a few decades it will be difficult to think of them as mere machines, and that will introduce philosophical problems that we currently don't even know exist. There are other, more immediate problems having to do with how fast they can replace us at various tasks, and our deep inability to completely control their behaviour once they cross a certain threshold of complexity.

Q: What aspect of your approach do you consider to be most effective in conveying this message to the general public?

Speaking in plain English, and choosing clear, interesting, and memorable metaphors.

Q: You said in the Preface to Slaves of the Machine that it should be read at the beach. I understand that part of this is an allusion to silicon. But are you also hoping that this book will be viewed as recreational, summer-lite reading?

I hope so, at least initially. The book is more than that, though, since the issues are serious and won't go away anytime soon. But I always find it better to instruct by amusement rather than punishment. Too many non-fiction books are written as if the reader should be forced to read it "for their own good."

Q: What message would you like the businessman to come away with after reading this book?

Rethink your impression of the purpose of computers and consider what the general public is going to think of the products you help to create. Keep your business structure flexible and don't rely on sheer size to do your thinking for you.

This message isn't as urgent now, though, with the enormous explosion of the internet. Many businesses have already learned this lesson by painful experience.

Q: Is this a different message than that meant for future generations of computer users and computer scientists?

Only in the sense that business people are more likely to be funding new computer projects and, therefore, they have more say in what actually gets produced.

Q: How did you become interested in the sociological aspects of our technological future?

I've always been a strong reader of history, and any student of history who is also a scientist or technologist has to be aware of the social consequences of technological change. In fact, one of the many reasons I wanted to write these books is that historians as a group have largely ignored technology and its effect on the historical process, choosing instead to focus only on charismatic leaders. That made me mad for years.

Historians too often draw easy lessons from history by focussing on the Napoleons of the world and not the food, or military, or transportation technology that made their exploits possible. One of the many reasons I wrote these last two books was that I'd finally seen James Burke's marvelous "Connections" tv shows, made for British television in the 70s. He's one of the few historians who recognize technology as a central player in social change.

Q: What do you mean by "technologically empowered"?

Computers and technology in general make a big difference in my life, they increase my power to do things, they empower me. People who aren't technologically adept are consequently less powerful than I, simply because of technology.

Q: Who will sink and who will swim in your vision of the future?

The educated, the rich, and the flexible will swim. Everyone else will sink.

Q: What will the future hold for those who are not up to speed or technologically empowered? Do you view technology as the next evolution, which will weed out the weaker, technologically impaired members of the species?

I find that particular phrasing a little awkward. To use the adjective `weaker' suggests that technology and riches are the only measures of success as a human being. We value many kinds of people for what they do, and not all of them are interested in the direct pursuit of wealth ­ priests for example. With that said though, I think that technology and the acquisition of wealth are becoming more and more correlated (that was part of what I tried to say in "Moths to the Flame"), and will continue to be so until they essentially become one thing. To be a truly participating citizen of 21st century America, it won't be sufficient to simply be American, you'll have to be comfortable with high technology as well. What will happen to our society as that process accelerates is one of my main concerns ­ many of us won't be able to keep up. We've always had such people, but the problem is much more acute now because of the massive and unrelenting pace of technological change. Stepping off the merry-go-round now is just about the worst time in the world to do so. Those who step off (or, sadly, are forced off) will find it increasingly difficult to step back on. Whole continents, Africa for example, are being lost in this way right now.

Q: With this view, what is your advice to those who wish to be more fit for survival in the technological era?

Exposure and education. Don't fear the technology so much that you're the last to adopt it. By the time you do, that particular technology will have been made palatable enough to use, but the next wave of advanced technology will already be available to those who are able to keep surfing the edge of change. Those people will always have the advantage, and that advantage is growing larger and larger as each new computer generation exponentially increases in power.

Q: Tell us about your theories on how society will re-stratify itself around technology - the haves and the have-nots.

I'm sorry to say that unless there is some phenomenal change, the inability of the bulk of us to keep up will relegate most of us to the second rank of power, income, opportunity, and ability.

Q: What sociological effects will we see as a result of the widening technology gap? 10 years from now? 50 years from now?

10 years from now, I don't think there will be that much change originating solely from technology. It's more likely that social and political changes will be at the fore. But three to four decades from now, I can't see how our contemporary social organizations (democracy, capitalism, the welfare state, and so on) can survive. If things progress as they're going now, America will by then be equivalent to a third world country in terms of the distribution of income and opportunity, yet it will be a super-first-world country in terms of the raw power available to its ever tinier elite. It's dificult to see how participatory democracy, just to choose one example, can exist in any meaningful sense in such a country.

Q: Slaves of the Machine, is a balance of past and future. Which message do you think is more important for the reader to remember after having read the book?

The past predicts the future ­ in fact, it's the only reliable predictor we have.

Q: In Slaves of the Machine, you claim that computers are akin to animals, as it is behavior that matters, rather than form. Can you describe what you mean by "behavior"?

By 'behavior' I mean the things an entity is capable of. Today a phone is a simple device. In a decade it'll grow far beyond that and most likely disappear physically. Its capabilities though ­ the things it can do ­ will increase, as will what we know today as televisions, radios, stereo systems, cars, lawnmowers, manufacturing robots, and on and on and on. These devices will eventually stop being things we control totally and they will eventually speak to us and each other. We are entering an era where manufactured things have a degree of purposive behavior that will begin to separate them from the inanimate world of rocks and dirt. We're not used to a world where our car plots with our phone and our office computer on how best to arrange our life.

Q: You have said several times that people are unable to deal with the rate of change and advancement in technology. What makes you say that?

History. It has alaways taken us a long time to accept new things ­ cars, locomotives, phones, televisions, and so on. We don't think of these things as strange today because we're used to them, but we're faced with new things today ­ cloning, life on mars, artificial chromosomes, the discovery of extrasolar planets ­ and all of these things might have technological consequences for us down the road. If there were only one new thing being introduced every twenty years or so then we could easily deal with the pace of change. But that's no longer the case ­ these things are coming out by the month now. As the pace of discovery accelerates that will be happening once a week, then eventually, once a day, then every few minutes. Are we ready for a world when things as major as cloning are unknown at breakfast and old news by lunch? I think not.

Q: When do you foresee that computers will be able to adapt on their own? Is this different than simple robots making decisions in response to bumping into a wall or needing to refuel in sunlight?

It'll probably be another two decades before they're capable of doing things that most of us would recognize as being animal-like. Also, it's not a difference in kind, but a difference in quantity. It's one thing for a robot to avoid bumping into a wall, it's another for it to avoid bumping into a wall while carrying on a conversation and carrying drinks and not spilling any or missing a beat. As you add up capabilities, eventually you cross a point where we will start to think of them as purposive.

Q: Have you had the opportunity to tinker with some of the developments that you mention in your book, such as optical computers? For the end user, is there a noticeable difference? What would be the applications? Only in supercomputing, or in personal computing, as well?

I've only played with analog computers, and that only briefly. So far the diferences are vast because the technologies are so primitive. It'll take a while to shape them to be price-competitive and similar in function to today's digital computers. So far the applications of these exotic devices are extremely specialized, as must be the case for anything so expensive and experimental, but that will surely change over time. Even within normal computer technology both Intel and Motorola have announced machines in the gigahertz range by the year 2000 ­ that's about a million times faster than anything we had in the 80s.

Q: Do you see a price trend, as computers get faster but become more popular with the general public?

Yes. Within a few years computers will be much more reasonably priced as their capabilities exceed a minimum threashhold of ability and enough of us feel the need to buy them. Computers have not yet become truly household items the way phones are ­ only a third of american households have computers even today, and their pricepoint is still set to reflect that. Most people in the upper middle classes are willing to part with a few thousand dollars today to buy a computer. That pricepoint will drop when it becomes a truly household device, like a toaster. Once the market becomes saturated (say 80 percent of households), computer companies will try to sell computers that are less sophisticated than the best possible ones, but that are useful for some purpose (say websurfing) costing only a few hundred dollars. That will further spur market penetration, which in turn will further encourage the pricepoint to drop.

Q: In Slaves of the Machine you compare the process of computers independently building better computers to a thermonuclear explosion. Can you explain this analogy? Are you comparing it to an act of ultimate violence and destruction because it is a symbol of humans relinquishing control over their own creations? Does this have to sound menacing?

I'm sorry that it sounds quite that menacing, that was not really my intent. My meaning was that there is no process in our experience that builds on itself as it progresses other than a thermonuclear explosion. Once enough neutrons are being released, they hit other atoms that in turn release their neutrons, and the more neutrons there are the more likely it is for some of them to hit even more atoms, which release their neutrons and so on, in an ever escalating spiral. Similarly, the more computers there are and the more poweful they become, the more likely it is that the next generation of computer will be more powerful and more widespread. We don't have anything similar in normal day to day life, hence my analogy.

However, it can't be denied that there's some element of menace in the pandora's box we're opening up. I felt it my duty to explain that the wonders that technology brings us always have prices, and one of the prices of this particular technology is that it will not be as controllable as previous ones were.

Q: When you discuss the distinction between brains and computers, cells and chips, and determine that the importance lies more in the complex organization of each, rather than the biological component, are you hoping that the reader will take this as inspiration to look forward to the future of computer development or to dread it?

Gosh, these are hard questions. I'm trying hard not to put a value judgement on what I foresee, I'm just trying to tell my public what I foresee and let them make up their own minds about whether it's an overall good change or not. Personally speaking I think it will be a fabulous turn of events, but there are bound to be serious social disruptions as the technology percolates through society.

Q: What position would you like to be remembered as having taken in this book? Neo-Darwinist? Luddite? Prophet?

Perhaps neo-Darwinist prophet? I really would not like to be thought of as a luddite. Technology is what it is ­ a human response to problems of environmental control ­ it's been a part of us since the dawn of our species and it's not ever going to go away.

Q: In your opinion, what would make computers more human? The capacity to have an opinion and to make a judgement call? Or would you prefer to emphasize the development of the computer's ability to build or reinvent itself as it evolves into something new? Perhaps the real question is, would you consider it more important that a computer evolves like an organism over time, or that it is able to gain intelligence and, ultimately, self-awareness?

These are good questions. I think that you can't have the second without the first ­ I guess ultimately that was what I was trying to say in Slaves. The field of artificial intelligence, of which I'm a part, has spent decades and billions of dollars trying to achieve intelligent artifacts from the top down. In my view, and that of many others presently working in AI, that effort has largely failed. In its original aims, although there have been many commericially useful applications.

As for what would make a computer more human, my ultimate answer in Slaves is that we are the only ones to make computers more human. By that I don't mean simply that we're the ones doing the instruction, but mostly that the definition of `human' is anything that is perceived by human beings as being human, or at least close to human. We have laws about animal welfare not because we have conclusively proved that they are self-aware, but because "we" are so seduced by the similarities between ourselves and other animals that we put ourselves in the animal's position. Whether or not they truly are self-aware, whatever that means, is irrelevant. One day I think we will reach that stage with computers. Of course, what we call a computer today and what we'll call a computer 20 or 30 years from now will be two different things.

Q: As someone who has written and spoken on the future of electronic pulishing, how does it feel to have your own book up on the web?

It feels natural. Everyone should do it. Paper is on its way out and the sooner it happens the happier I'll be. Of course, it's still too awkward to read it online with today's primitive reading devices, but that will change.

Q: As a Sci Fi fan and computer scientist, are there any authors of fiction that you see as inspirational, or ahead of their time? Eerily prophetic?

H. G. Wells
Jules Vernes
Robert Heinlein
Arthur C. Clarke
William Gibson
Vernor Vinge
Daniel Keys Moran
many others, most are science fiction authors

For a detailed list of Gregory Rawlins's favorite and most inspiring books, please visit his Recommended Reading page.





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