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by Andrew Starling
When you create a new Web site, what's your prime audience? People or
machines?
July 19, 2000
Allow me to ramble on for a moment about Ray Kurzweil's "The Age of Spritual Machines". It's highly relevant.
The basic
premise of the book is that we're on the verge of inventing intelligent machines that are
clever enough to manage their own reproduction.
They may not be genuinely spiritual, or original, or deep-thinking, but they'll
be able to defend themselves and reproduce, which means they become a species,
in a primitive sort of way.
The book also explains that superior species invariably win the battle for
survival, and there's a risk that the machines we create will probably be superior
to humans in a few important aspects. Somewhere along the way we'll find ourselves
subservient to them. Ultimately, if we get into a conflict with them, we may lose.
You can see the idea portrayed in science fiction films like Robocop and to
a lesser extent Blade Runner. Many people believe the idea belongs right there,
in the movies and in books, because it will never become reality.
I'm not one of them. And other people I know who also have a deep knowledge
of science see the book as prophetic. We're building dangerous tools with our
high technology. Ultimately we'll be driven by commerce into making slip-ups and
we'll lose control.
Maybe we won't lose control to the extent of becoming overrun and dying out,
though the risk exists. But the machines we develop will be so advanced that only
other machines can design and build them, the details will always be a mystery
to humanity. That's quite a lot of trust we'll be placing in machines.
And crucially, it's our generation that's creating the technology and building
the wired planet these machines will need if they are to take on independent life.
We are, as a generation, the equivalent of Oppenheimer's A-bomb team. We're building
something very technical and interesting, but we won't be in control of its final
use.
I first came across examples of this process in action when I edited a magazine
about semiconductors (microchips). In some factories there are real robots that
move around taking half-finished products from one processing machine to another.
The internal design of the chips is so difficult that it's no longer possible
for humans to do it. And the process of physically building them takes even more
computing power. Clever computers are used to design and build the next generation
of chips that they themselves will eventually incorporate in their own electronic
bodies. That's not too far away from the regular concept of reproduction.
Internet
It hasn't been so noticeable in the Internet industry. Sure, I can see that
we're all so dependent on computers and email that if we get a power cut or a
major computer virus we may as well go home. But that's not much different to
a blacksmith needing furnace fuel or an old-fashioned ploughman needing his horse
to be fit and well.
I've also recognised that personal computers aren't user-friendly. The only
way we manage to deal with them is by users becoming computer-friendly. But again,
no big deal.
A few weeks ago I changed my mind.
I'm creating a new Web site, as a sideline, as people in the Internet industry
do. It's the sixth site I've started from scratch (if I remember correctly) and
I've learned plenty from the previous five. One of the big things I've learned
is that very few visitors arrive in the early months. Unless you've spent a fortune
on publicity, your site bursts into the virtual world with a whimper rather
than a roar.
Instead of being disappointed by this, I now work with it. Some of the search
engines take four months to index a site, and only a few manage to return results
within the first few weeks. Meanwhile the number of visitors each week can be
measured in dozens, maybe reaching the low hundreds if you're lucky.
So my philosophy is to let the site mature on the vine. Get the subject matter
right in the early stages, spend enormous amounts of time on keywords (half of
all initial work), then mount the site on a server and register it with the search
engines. For a month or so afterwards, pretty much ignore it. Let it ripen in
the sunshine.
At this stage, there's no real need to worry about the graphics, grammar, comprehensive
links and possibly even accuracy, because hardly any people are going to find
this precious new creation. All I'm interested in doing is making sure the search
engine robots can find it and successfully pick up the keywords.
There, I just said it.
My first priority in creating a new site isn't humans, it's machines. I want
to please computers and their scouts, otherwise known as spiders or robots. I
want them to come and enjoy themselves and go back with wonderful memories, which
they eventually index and add to their databanks.
Sure, I'll get around to refining it so humans find it worthwhile too, but
that can wait. My first priority is its attractiveness to machines.
Now tell me, isn't that just a little bit scary? It's probably the first time
in my life I've created material primarily for the appreciation and approval of
machines, as a kind of species, and appropriately a species called robots. I even
write a file especially for them, the robots.txt file.
I don't think it's a revelation that's going to change my life, or anybody
else's. But it's sure been an interesting wake-up call.
I am now trying to please a species of machines. Welcome to the IT A-bomb team.
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