“Every program tunnels into possibility. A frog tries to cross a busy street. An ape defends himself with barrel bombs. Under those ridiculous, blocky skins, creatures from another dimension pour into Neelay's world. And there's only the narrowest window of time in which to really see them, before these things that never were turn into things that have always been. In a few years, a kid like him will be given cognitive behavioral therapy for his Asperger's and SSRIs to smooth out his awkward human interactions. But he knows something certain, before almost anyone else: People are in for it. Once, the fate of the human race might have been in the hands of the well adjusted, the social ones, the masters of emotion. Now all that is getting upgraded.” TechnologyPowerSociety Book:The Overstory Source: The Overstory
“High above Adam's prison, new creatures sweep up into satellite orbit and back down to the planet's surface, obeying the old, first hungers, the primal commands - look, listen, taste, touch, feel, say, join. They gossip to one other, these new species, exchanging discoveries, as living code has exchanged itself from the beginning. They begin to link up, to fuse together, to merge their cells and form small communities. There's no saying what they might become, in seventy plus seventy years.” TechnologyArtificial IntelligenceRichard PowersThe Overstory Book:The Overstory Source: The Overstory
“I think that if the novel's task is to describe where we find ourselves and how we live now, the novelist must take a good, hard look at the most central facts of contemporary life - technology and science.” IfsThinkingLooksHardFactsTechnologyNovelTasksContemporaryNovelistsContemporary Life Author:Richard Powers
“My goal for technology has always been to reach a point where the technological mediation becomes invisible.” GoalTechnologyInvisibleTechnologicalMediation Author:Richard Powers
