What Technology Wants...A Conversation with Kevin Kelly

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Is technology as a whole more than just a jumble of wires and metal and bits and bytes? Could it be viewed as an evolving organism, one with its own unconscious needs and tendencies? This straight-forward proposition would certainly have us looking differently at our smart phones, iPads and laptops.

Author, former Whole Earth Editor and co-founder of Wired Kevin Kelly knows a thing or two about technology. In fact he's one of the great technology thinkers of our time. In his latest book, What Technology Wants, Kevin introduces us to brand new view of technology. By making the claim that it is an extension of the human body — not "of our genes, but of our minds" — he concludes that everything humans have thought of and produced over time has followed, shaped and become integrated into human evolution.

His new theory of technology offers three practical lessons:

• By listening to what technology wants we can better prepare ourselves and our children for the inevitable technologies to come.
• By adopting the principles of pro-action and engagement, we can steer technologies into their best roles.
• And by aligning ourselves with the long-term imperatives of this near-living system, we can capture its full gifts.

About Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly has been a participant of, and reporter on, the information technology revolution for the past 20 years. Based in his studio in Pacifica, California, he immerses himself in the long-term trends of technology, tools, new media, and cultural behavior. He writes about the ripple effects and social consequences surrounding the culture of technology. Kevin's most recent book is entitled What Technology Wants and presents a refreshing view of technology as a living force in the world.

Kevin Kelly is currently Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He helped launch Wired in 1993, and served as its Executive Editor until January 1999. During Kelly’s tenure as editor at Wired, the magazine won two National Magazine Awards (the industry’s equivalent of two Oscars). He is also currently editor and publisher of the Cool Tools website, which gets 1 million visitors per month.

From 1984-1990, Kevin was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review, a journal of unorthodox technical news. He co-founded the ongoing Hackers’ Conference, and was involved with the launch of the WELL, a pioneering online service started in 1985. He authored the best-selling New Rules for the New Economy, and the classic book on decentralized emergent systems, Out of Control (called “required reading for all executives” by Fortune). In addition, he writes for prominent publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Time, Harpers, Science, GQ, and Esquire. Earlier in life, Kevin was a photographer in remote parts of Asia (instead of going to college), publishing his photographs in national magazines and recently in the photo art book Asia Grace.

"Kevin's on the road to Buddha-hood. He's a deeply spiritual man. He has an intellectual curiosity that is infinite. His Socratic method of inquiry and development is wonderful. It used to annoy me. I used to think, This guy's an editor. He's a futurist—that’s fine—but I've got to do some business. Why is he bothering me with these questions? But the more time I spend with Kevin, the more I realize that the way his mind wanders across things keeps us all on the edge." — Jane Metcalfe, president and co-founder of Wired Ventures