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The ascent of GIM, the global intelligent machine : a history of production and information machines
Koetsier T., Springer International Publishing, New York, NY, 2018. 364 pp. Type: Book (978-3-319965-46-8)
Date Reviewed: Jul 1 2019

Part of Springer’s “History of Mechanism and Machine Science” series, this would have been a better title for the book. The author starts with a kind of “fuzzy” introduction to the “Big History of the Machine,” looking at concepts related to autonomous robots, Homo sapiens, homo faber, homo loquens, historical ages and revolutions (for example, the Stone Age, the Iron Age, the Industrial Revolution), production and information tools, hybrid machines, and even memes. All of these ideas connect and culminate in GIM, the global intelligent machine, “like a giant robot.”

The second chapter starts with an interesting and cultural journey through the history and evolution of tools and mechanisms and machines, including aspects of the evolution of intelligence and society and the communication/information roles in this evolutionary process. The chapter describes the importance of tools and communication in animals; the rise of Homo sapiens thanks to the development of functional capabilities (Homo erectus) and tools from the Stone Age; and the evolution of symbolic thought, which include arts and the first stages of group communication.

Chapter 3 describes the Agricultural Revolution and its impacts on the evolution of society: new tools, new language signs and representations (the origins of the alphabet and math), and the need for representing and controlling time, distance, maps, and recording data--here begins a new society of workers with political and religious organizations. Chapters 4 through 6 present a rich description of the new ages, growing empires, mechanical problems, and related machines (for example, production machines, war machines). The rise of abstract symbolic thought, the philosophers, and the first “engineers,” combined with the Iron Age and new machines and ideas, was a big leap for humanity.

New tools were created during the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution, and steam/water energy offered the basis for another new leap: the Industrial Revolution (Industry 1.0: textile, iron, steam). All those evolutionary steps are described in the book, with rich examples of machines, tools, and historical facts and people. Chapter 8 is a “bonus,” discussing the role of scientific revolutions/innovations and the economic and social impacts they have: the Malthusian trap and the cycles of development/crisis. Chapter 8 finishes with the first automatic calculation machines, and chapter 9 introduces readers to the next Industrial Revolution (Industry 2.0: steel, railroads, globalization, electric Power).

Computers and the Information Age are described in chapters 10 and 11, and then we arrive at Industry 3.0 (the Digital Revolution). Real-time computing, new sensors, new actuators, robots, and the Internet are the basis for the new era, and even if the author doesn’t like to adopt this nomenclature, we enter Industry 4.0 (the fourth industrial wave), the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) age.

Finally, chapter 12 starts the discussion of GIM--almost all of the previous 300 pages are about the history and evolution of machines, tools, and information--and readers are presented with a speculative discussion of the future. In chapters 12 and 13, the author presents optimistic and pessimistic scenarios, with the hypothetical emergence of a “brave new world” where all machines are integrated, forming a world-sized and interconnected GIM.

The introduction and final chapters are quite cluttered, and GIM is more conjectural than real. Apart from these vague chapters, this is a very interesting and educational book.

Reviewer:  Fernando Osorio Review #: CR146612 (1909-0326)
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General (I.2.0 )
 
 
History of Computing (K.2 )
 
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