I can see why the syllabus has this text as the first reading. Having been written in 1960, the dawn of computing – a time when computers took up entire rooms and memory had to be allocated manually – much of what is described here is strikingly visionary. A “network” of “thinking centers” is the modern day World Wide Web, “time-sharing systems” are The Cloud, and “Computer-Posted Wall Displays” are monitors – those and so much more in this text are directly or indirectly connected to the contemporary computing experience. Even more impressively. Licklider’s thinking can now be applied to present-day AI (Artificial Intelligence) models such as LLM’s (Large Language Models) (ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) Today, it is possible to give these computer “colleagues” high level planning tasks in natural language and expect a response in seconds, if not under a minute. They will react readily, well, and rapidly, producing graphs, paragraphs of text, images, sound bites, and even videos. Seemingly, the divide between computer and human has shrunk
And none of that is by accident. If humans want to do something, we can. Later in life, Licklider directly helped develop the early Internet, computer time-sharing, computer graphics, and more. [1.] Thus, Licklider both wrote the utopian vision of computational coexistence while also working towards it. Contemporary AI research is likely still motivated by his 1960s vision, whether directly by this text being in university syllabuses or through later academics carrying his ideas forward. And if you look beyond Licklider’s bias towards ever-increasing productivity and his preference for higher level decision making over the labor of clerical work, his vision of humans living hand-in-server with computers is quite appealing. Indeed, likely only an AI model could have cracked something as cryptic as protein folding [2.] – and to great human benefit – but ethical and moral dilemmas start to arise once direct brain-to-computer interfaces, AI-controlled livestock farming [3.] and AI-led war come into play. When should humans make decisions, who does AI benefit, and what do we even want to do with our shared existence? All of this has to be answered before committing to a potentially hazardous computer-human linkage.
I also want to point out how both I and Licklider have tended to talk about computers – as near-people. When referring to notions of symbiosis and collaboration, Licklider personifies the computer. He does not think of it as a tool, rather, as a companion. Personification is an incredibly human trait, and there is nothing wrong with doing so but it is important to point out that We, humans, created computers as computational tools*. Humans built the electron tubes, induced the binary behavior, designed the CPU architectures, programmed the Operating Systems, and sold the final product. If anything, computers are an incredible fingerprint of human tool development, but that does not make computers equivalent to humans. We are humans; with self-replicating DNA, electro-chemical neurons, hands, eyes, toes, and feet, all for walking around this small rare planet. Computers are a fragment of us. One day we might well engineer them to be as advanced human life, yet only as a culmination of human thought, blood, curiosity, and dedication, and likely blueprinted off of our own existing biology.
As a final note, not all fig trees require Blastophaga grossorum to pollinate, especially not commercial varieties. Aside from attempting a vaguely biological-sounding human-computer symbiosis, if we consider the development of an all-powerful artificial intelligence inevitable and proceed to make one, it might be worth asking – are we the fig tree or the wasp that pollinates it, and are those the only two options that we have?
[1.] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "J.C.R. Licklider". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Jun. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-C-R-Licklider. Accessed 14 September 2025.
[2.] Geddes, Linda. “DeepMind Uncovers Structure of 200m Proteins in Scientific Leap Forward.” The Guardian, 28 July 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/28/deepmind-uncovers-structure-of-200m-proteins-in-scientific-leap-forward. Accessed 14 September 2025.
[3.] Foris, Borbala, and Jean-Loup Rault. “Ai-Agent Ethics should consider sentient non-human animals.” Nature, vol. 645, no. 8079, 2 Sept. 2025, pp. 41–41, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-02796-0.