J.C.R. Licklider

information network timesharing

"It seems reasonable to envision, for a time 10 or 15 years hence, a 'thinking center' that will incorporate the functions of present-day libraries together with anticipated advances in information storage and retrieval. The picture readily enlarges itself into a network of such centers, connected to one another by wide-band communication lines and to individual users by leased-wire services. In such a system, the speed of the computers would be balanced, and the cost of the gigantic memories and the sophisticated programs would be divided by the number of users."

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)

computer telegraph material

"[The computer is also the direct descendant of the telegraph as it enables one... to] "transmit information without transporting material"

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)

debriation crl keyboard display

"It should be possible, in a 'debreviation' mode, to type 'clr' on the keyboard and have 'The Council on Library Resources, Inc.' appear on the display."

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)

dangerous theory information psychology

"It is probably dangerous to use this theory of information in ﬁelds for which it was not designed, but I think the danger will not keep people from using it. In psychology, at least in the psychology of communication, it seems to ﬁt with a fair approximation. When it occurs that the learnability of material is roughly proportional to the information content calculated | by the theory, I think it looks interesting. There may have to be modiﬁcations, of course. For example, I think that the human receiver of information gets more out of a message that is encoded into a broad vocabulary (an extensive set of symbols) and presented at a slow pace, than from a message, equal in information content, that is encoded into a restricted set of symbols and presented at a faster pace. Nevertheless, the elementary parts of the theory appear to be very useful. I say it may be dangerous to use them, but I don’t think the danger will scare us off."

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)

library book print procognitive

"One must be prepared to reject not only the schema of the physical library, which is essentially a response to books and their proliferation, but the schema of the book itself, and even that of the printed page as a long term storage device, if one is to discover the kinds of procognitive systems needed in the future."

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)

substitute book device transmit information transport material

"We need to substitute for the book a device that will make it easy to transmit information without transporting material."

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)

communication men macine face information

"In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face. That is a rather startling thing to say, but it is our conclusion... And we believe that we are entering a technological age in which we will be able to interact with the richness of living information--not merely in the passive way that we have become accustomed to using books and libraries, but as active participants in an ongoing process, bringing something to it through our interaction with it, and not simply receiving something from it by our connection to it."

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)

hope human brain computer coupled partnership

"The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know today."

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)

men noisy narrow-band nervous system parallel channel computer

"Men are noisy, narrow-band devices, but their nervous systems have very many parallel and simultaneously active channels. Relative to men, computing machines are very fast and very accurate, but they are constrained to perform only one or a few elementary operations at a time. Men are flexible, capable of "programming themselves contingently" on the basis of newly received information. Computing machines are single-minded, constrained by their "pre-programming.""

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)

multidisciplinary group estimate 1980 AI

"A multidisciplinary study group ... estimated that it would be 1980 before developments in artificial intelligence make it possible for machines alone to do much thinking or problem solving of military significance. That would leave, say, five years to develop man-computer symbiosis and 15 years to use it. The 15 may be 10 or 500, but those years should be intellectually the most creative and exciting in the history of mankind."

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)

computer destiny interactive intellectual amplifier network

“It is the destiny of computers to become interactive intellectual amplifiers for all people pervasively networked worldwide.”

—J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)