It’s more along the lines of raising a child: we train the system to a certain range of behaviors that we find most useful. But then we let it go, because we don’t want to have to be babysitting it the whole time. Kevin Kelly Read Quote
But in fact, when you try to model that on a computer you find that because of the very structure of matter and of the chemical bonds that are the basis of every organism, evolution is not random at all. It will tend to follow certain paths. Kevin Kelly Read Quote
Basins of attraction, of self organization, show up as well in our complex social environment, in human organizations. Here again, while we cannot predict the result of any given input, we can say that it will likely fall within one of several areas. Kevin Kelly Read Quote
This is actually a very important principle that science is learning about large systems like evolution and that futurists are learning about anticipating human society: just because a future scenario is plausible doesn’t mean we can get there from here. Kevin Kelly Read Quote
A brain is a society of very small, simple modules that cannot be said to be thinking, that are not smart in themselves. But when you have a network of them together, out of that arises a kind of smartness. Kevin Kelly Read Quote
An organization’s intelligence is distributed to the point of being ubiquitous. Kevin Kelly Read Quote
Managers tend to treat organizations as if they are infinitely plastic. They hire and fire, merge, downsize, terminate programs, add capacities. But there are limits to the shifts that organizations can absorb. Kevin Kelly Read Quote
Species go extinct because there are historical contraints built into a given body or a given design. Kevin Kelly Read Quote
But when you are embodied in a location, in a physical plant, in a set of people, and in a common history, that constrains your evolution and your ability to evolve in certain directions. Kevin Kelly Read Quote
Organizations get invested into a particular product. And sometimes the best thing is to stop making that product, even though it’s profitable, because it has optimized at a local peak. Kevin Kelly Read Quote
