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person1980s-present

Kevin Kelly

Disciplines:
art/futurism
technology/technology theory

Summary

American writer and co-founder of Wired who has developed a philosophical account of technology as a self-organizing system with its own evolutionary logic.

Core Contribution

Out of Control: complex adaptive systems — biological, technological, economic — all exhibit similar emergent, self-organizing properties. What Technology Wants: technology (the 'technium') is an extension of biological evolution — it wants the same things life wants: diversity, efficiency, complexity. The Inevitable: 12 forces shaping the future — streaming, accessing, tracking, using, questioning, etc.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Was a founding editor of Wired magazine — the publication that defined the digital age's self-understanding — and his optimistic technology philosophy became Silicon Valley's intellectual background.
  • Did not own a computer until his late thirties and traveled extensively in Asia before entering the technology world — an unusual background for Silicon Valley's philosopher.

Notable Works & Achievements

Out of Control

New Rules for the New Economy

What Technology Wants

The Inevitable

Historical Influences

Stewart Brand Buckminster Fuller

Intellectual Lineage

Systems Theory Technology Philosophy

Contemporaries & Peers

Stewart Brand Nicholas Negroponte

Minds Influenced

Technology Optimism Silicon Valley Thinking

Intellectual Posterity

Technology Futurism

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