How is it that I’ve gotten so out of the loop that I missed this book? I ran across a link to it in Peter Morville’s excellent article (itself worthy of a few thorough readings) and was glad to see somebody else putting into much better and more complete expression something I’ve been inarticulately grunting for a long time: that things like ‘artificial intelligence’ or even complex human systems — you know, like, corporations — are going to have to somehow embrace biological structures, organic methods. Whatever those are.

I only just started reading this book, but it sounds like it’s making a great case for this point of view. Looks like a really fun read too.

Kevin Kelly — Chapter 1: The Made and the Born

For the world of our own making has become so complicated that we must turn to the world of the born to understand how to manage it. That is, the more mechanical we make our fabricated environment, the more biological it will eventually have to be if it is to work at all. Our future is technological; but it will not be a world of gray steel. Rather our technological future is headed toward a neo-biological civilization.