Cyberspace as Today's Not-So-Hidden Closet

I've been consuming a steady diet of science fiction since, way back in the 1950s, I discovered the legendary Foundation series from New York-born biochemist Isaac Asimov.  That's why I'm delighted that I live in Canada where, despite our relatively small population, we exceed our quota of successful SF writers for folks with my chronic addiction to enjoy.

One such treasure is William Gibson of Vancouver, the man who is credited with inventing the term cyberspace and forecasting the Internet. Last year he wrote a droll op-ed article he called Google's Earth  for the New York Times. No, it's not about maps but a futurist writer's take on Google as a form of AI (artificial intelligence) no author ever envisaged. Google of course was founded by two math geniuses who developed algorithms that are key to its intellectual property and there's even a connection between Google and the Foundation books in that at the core of the story are projections by a fictional mathematician named Hari Seldon.

To develop his theme Gibson uses a published interview that Google Chairman Eric Schmidt gave. It contained this pearl: “I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.”