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The new business opportunity: System Administration and consulting

HI sets forth a new computational framework in which each computer is extremely customized to the needs of one and only one individual. The computer becomes very much like a prosthetic device, or like prescription eyeglasses. And just as you would not want to wear another person's undergarments, or another person's mouthguard, you may not likely find yourself wearing another person's computer.

And the traditional paradigm of one worldwide software vendor providing to everyone identical copies of an executable-only distribution no longer applies. Instead, complete reconfigurability is needed. Instead, each user will customize his or her own environment. Since many layperson users are not well-versed in operating system kernel source code, there will be a growing need for system administrators and consultants.

In the future, software will be free, and users will buy support. There will be little problem with software piracy, both because the software will be free, and because a version of the software customized for one person will be of lesser use to another person with different needs. Each person will likely have different user preferences. And because the computer will function as a true extension of the user's mind and body, it would not do the user well to ingest software owned by somebody else. The computer will function much like a ``second brain'', and In the true spirit of freedom of thought, it would be preferable that any commercial interests in the customization and contents of one's ``second brain'' be a work for hire (e.g. an interaction in which the end-user owns the rights) rather than a software purchase. Thus there will be an exponentially growing need for personal system administrators as new people are born into the community of connected collective humanistic intelligence.


next up previous
Next: Bibliography Up: Conclusions Previous: Intelligence: Real or Artificial?
Steve Mann
1998-09-15