Jonathan Harris, painter, photographer, writer, explorer, and computer scientist, recently posted a short series of vignettes called “Modern Medicine” on The Farmer & Farmer Review. He notes, “They draw some comparisons between software and medicine — in their dual capacities to heal and to hurt. They explore the nature of addictive technologies in relation to business, the power that software designers are presently wielding over the masses, and a new way of imagining companies: as medicine men for the species. I hope these vignettes will help to inspire the engineering community to adopt a common set of ethical principles to guide the evolution of software (which, in turn, will help to guide the evolution of our species).”
The Farmer & Farmer Review, which Harris started with Sep Kamvar, a professor at the MIT Media Lab, is a venue for publishing vivid and provocative essays from leading practitioners in technology and the arts, exploring the relationship between humans and technology.
To see and read the vignettes go here (and get a printable version).
