MetaManager.net Information Technology Perspectives

Turning the Tables?

abbe — Thu, 14 May 2026 17:40:35 +0000

The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes brought a plucked chicken to Plato’s Academy to demonstrate the inadequacy of defining the human being as a featherless biped. Throughout history, demonstrations of this sort have been made necessary by efforts or events suggesting that humans are not particularly exceptional. In our own time Marvin Minsky, a pioneer in […]

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AI Safety is a Two Way Street

abbe — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 04:01:41 +0000

Lessons from Public Education on Propaganda After World War II, many public schools in America offered instruction in propaganda and persuasive techniques. Educators believed that the exercise of critical judgment about the leaders we choose to vote for and the products we opt to buy as consumers is essential for personal success in life and […]

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Book Review of The Conquest of Will Revisited

abbe — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 15:36:24 +0000

The journal AI & Society has just published a review of Computers and Society in the Past Half Century: The Conquest of Will Revisited by Abbe Mowshowitz. The review, written by editor, Dr. Karamjit Gill under the title “The Myth of Mechanical Intelligence,” gives a detailed and comprehensive overview of the content and main points […]

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The Conquest of Will Revisited by Abbe Mowshowitz

abbe — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 20:40:01 +0000

Almost fifty years ago, Dr. Abbe Mowshowitz wrote the first comprehensive critical study of social issues in computing, The Conquest of Will (1976). This new book revisits this seminal study, featuring an overview of technological advances over the past half century, and provides a unique comparison between what was believed and expected of computers back in 1976, and actual outcomes up to the present time.

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Probing the Roots of Gun Violence

abbe — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 18:25:39 +0000

Introduction. Incidents of gun violence in which people are killed, maimed or traumatized are almost universally condemned. The press is full of the depressing stories and statistics, so no need to review them here. Such incidents are typically followed by public expressions of horror, disgust and disbelief. Opinions on the causes and measures to reduce […]

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On the Importance of Blockchain

abbe — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 19:56:58 +0000

Introduction. The advent of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, which are dependent on blockchain, have catapulted this new technology into the limelight. As a result, an endless stream of articles and purported explanations of blockchain have appeared in recent years. A Google search on the term “blockchain” turned up over 200 million entries at the time […]

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Lo and Behold: METAVERSE

abbe — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 20:28:20 +0000

Introduction. Is it a slogan, is it a philosophy? It’s METAVERSE! Presumably meta-universe is meant, but in our busy world contractions rule. Etymology buffs: note that the prefix has a Greek root which means “after.” The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was perhaps the first to popularize this prefix with his treatise on Metaphysics, so named […]

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Gone are the ties that bind

abbe — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 21:42:10 +0000

Recently published article: Business is the main driver of social change in the current period, and flexibility and agility are today’s catchwords, taking precedence over continuity. The marketplace puts a premium on short term relations in business since they favor the bottom line. Innovations in management pioneered by large companies since the end of the […]

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Information Technology and Social Stability

abbe — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 06:08:12 +0000

This presentation (delivered at the SPIE conference in Baltimore, April 20, 2016) concerns the long term effects of information technology on social stability. The central argument is that IT will inevitably reduce employment opportunities and thus contribute to destabilizing the nuclear family.

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Erosion of personal memory

abbe — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 19:05:41 +0000

Advanced information technology appears to be contributing to the erosion of personal memory: “Digital dependence ‘eroding human memory'” by Sean Coughlan. For a discussion of personal and social memory, see: Mowshowitz, A. The end of the information frontier. AI & Society, 28 (1), 2013, pp. 7-14; DOI 10.1007/s00146-012-0414-2.

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