Ellen Ullman

I fear for the world the Internet is creating. ”

I came of technical age with UNIX, where I learned with power-greedy pleasure that you could kill a system right out from under yourself with a single command. ”

So many people for so many years have promoted technology as the answer to everything. The economy wasn't growing: technology. Poor people: technology. Illness: technology. As if, somehow, technology in and of itself would be a solution. Yet machine values are not always human values. ”

Technology does not run backward. Once a technical capability is out there, it is out there for good. ”

It's possible to let technology absorb what we know and then re-express it in intricate mechanisms - parts and circuit boards and software objects - mechanisms we can use but do not understand in crucial ways. This not-knowing is fine while everything works as we expected. ”

Even simple fixes can bring the whole system down. ”

Closed environments dominated the computing world of the 1970s and early '80s. An operating system written for a Hewlett-Packard computer ran only on H.P. computers; I.B.M. controlled its software from chips up to the user interfaces. ”

Software and digital devices are imbued with the values of their creators. ”

Y2K has challenged a belief in digital technology that has been almost religious. ”

I think technical people now should learn literature, because literature teaches you a great deal about how - the depths and variety of human imagination. ”