The media lab

by Stewart Brand

Provides a look at the future as it is envisioned by the Media Lab at MIT, where scientists are retooling mass media to the desires and whims of the individual.

Genres: Science, Technology, Nonfiction, Computers, History, Biography, Business

285 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Stewart Brand was a pioneer in the environmental movement in the 60s – his Whole Earth Catalog became the Bible for sustainable living, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide. Brand is President of The Long Now Foundation and chairs the foundation's Seminars About Long-term Thinking.

Reviews

[Gwern · Rating 3 out of 5]

Due to hitting GR length limits, I've put a revised & expanded version of this review on my website: "Timing Technology: Lessons from the Media Lab".

[Pat Rondon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brand's overview of the activity in MIT's Media Lab in the mid-to-late 80s is structured in two major parts. The first part consists of profiles of and interviews with individual area leads,and provides interesting glimpses into the work of some of computer science's early pioneers (Kay, Minsky, and Papert, for example). The second part extrapolates from the work going on in the Media Lab to technology's long-term impact on society.

Perhaps ironically, it's this second section that seems most relevant today. It's remarkable how accurate the predictions offered have been in spirit, if not their exact substance --- their underlying concerns always remain relevant. The concern that the unidirectionality of satellite broadcasting (and, perhaps, the cost of transmission) is going to result in a net flow of information from rich countries to poor, creating a western cultural hegemony,now seems misplaced --- concerns about hegemony remain, but satellite TV is on its way out. Similarly, we now worry less about the government monopoly on radio spectrum than we do about network neutrality, but the fundamental issues surrounding the control of communication media remain the same.

There's a lot of food for thought here, and it's worth reading through this to get a sense of today's technology and our concerns about it in relation to the technology and concerns of a previous generation, to understand which things are really fundamental and which things are only incidental, and to try to develop a sense for what trends and developments we might be missing today.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has value in 2022 even though it was written in the late 80s. Brand makes the proclamation up front, even then, that some of what he would share about the Media Lab would involve 'handwaving' about the future of computing and how it would come about. He was right--by viewing the hype and conjecture that was present in the 80s, we can easily see the commonality in such speech today in relief. This was telling.

Secondly, the Media Lab did pioneer a lot of concepts we see today in terms of how people can intuitively relate to computers. It's almost as if Google and others took the work of the Media Lab (or the book itself) as a playbook and commenced to making all the ideas in there happen. Or, more likely, we cycle through similar concepts and reapply them as the power of computing increases.

I don't know if the Media Lab is still on the forefront of innovation regarding merging our needs with what computers can do, but I'm going to add their media releases to my reading lists.

[Thai Son · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! Written in 1987, but still relevant in many parts, and prescient for its time in others. A good case study for folks aspiring to build something similar--a hub of ideas, and place of creativity, and an environment for thinkers and builders.

[TK Keanini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stewart Brand is a rock star in my books. Reading this book in 2006 is much different than reading it back in the early 90's. Nonetheless, it is a great book and should be a part of our history.

[Luís Gouveia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este é um clássico que introduziu o Media Lab (do MIT) e o seu diretor N, Negroponte como o espaço de ideias para o digital.

Ainda atualmente, é um excelente exemplo de divulgação científica.
Quando o li, teve grande influência sobre a formação do meu pensamento

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steward Brand is a brilliant writer. Fascinating to see where he and the people featured in this book were absolutely spot-on with their predictions, where they were wrong, and where they just haven't been proven right *yet*.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sprawling book about nerds talking about nerdy things, with a variety of formats including interviews, history, and predictions. It's neat to see them talk about the the VCR as some novel technology. A lot of their predictions have panned out, which is neat.

[John Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though this book was published 25 years ago and I read it probably 20 years ago, off the top of my head I can recall at least a couple of research subjects it described that are still germane: telepresence and wearable computing. Telepresence has joined with robotics to make possible, among many other things, remote-control surgery. Wearable computing has yet to break out in any substantial way--which tells you how far ahead the Media Lab students and faculty have been working--but the much-anticipated Pebble smartwatch, which became hugely oversubscribed when its Kickstarter campaign launched in 2012, is one instance of the field.

So, in a variety of ways, this book prepped me for the future. It also described how the Media Lab worked at the time, and it sounded like so much fun (in a certain sense of fun) that I wished I had studied computer science and was equipped to apply there. Conceivably, a new version of this book could be just as illuminating as the original. And I may have to search the Wired magazine archives to see if it has ever published a newer survey of the place. Meanwhile, this edition is probably still worth reading, by anyone with a taste for history, because there's history here.

Side note: Though it will hardly matter to anyone else, this was yet another of the many fine books my mother gave me.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book discussed the information age, defining information as something different that makes a difference. It made an attempt to be readable and hip by discussing the intellectual happenings of MIT's Media Lab. It talked about research that was being done and about some predictions for the future. The Media Lab is looking for a way to make computers interactive instead of passive. It says poorer countries will have satellite TV while more affluent nations will have fiber optic links. Compare computers with automobiles at the turn of the century, where it was thought the demand wouldn't exceed a million do to the unavailability of chauffeurs to manage the personal railroads. A good book.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book that explained not only technical advances, but the possible effects on society they would do. I learned about the concept of narrowcasting with this book, and the first mention of what would become LEGO Mindstorms was made here.

Some neat ideas are explored here, including communication with groups using a concept called Talking Heads. Some of this now sounds pretty quaint but twenty years ago, it was pretty impressive.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating to learn of some of their projects and the way they encourage creativity. Seeing mistakes as opportunities to learn and adapt is a great approach to life.

[Kurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

foretelling the future.

[ian kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book that got me into computers.