Artificial Intelligence in Medicine: 11th Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine in Europe, AIME 2007, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, July 7-11, 2007, Proceedings Book

Sorry to say, I gave up on this book pretty early on, so I don't know if there was anything good in it. Mostly the problem was that by the time I got through reading the introduction to the revised second edition, I had very little patience left for the actual book. I wanted to give it a chance because there's always room for discussion and analysis of what changes are taking place in society due to technology, recognition of other alternatives could potentially be taken rather than accepting certain things as inevitable, and what the trade-offs and likelihoods are of those alternatives and a frank acknowledgement of the collective choice we are making as we adopt a technology in certain ways.
The first introduction, to the original edition, was hopeful, trying to be very clear that the author was not saying that computers are the devil and we should burn them and go back to the good old days of using sticks and leaves for all our communication, but rather trying to discuss the ways in which computers were being used, especially potentially and actually harmful ways, and in light of the way those uses are being advertised and sold. The second introduction, ten years later, as the encroaching of computers and the internet into the fabric of ours lives was only increasing, erased most of that hope. One issue that I can't fault the author for is that I'm reading it 20 years later, which changes my perspective enormously. Many complaints could have been addressed if he'd just waited. There are still plenty of things that are only available to the elites, sure, but a lot of his complaints about computers being too expensive or just user-unfriendly to be good to anyone else just needed time for the costs to come down and for there to be any development of good practices for user friendly interfaces.
But maybe that's not that different from other things that turned me off - like his bemoaning the fact that people are using computers for low brow entertainment and porn. "But I have often wondered how cognitive scientists and idealistic hackers must feel, knowing that the technology some among them regard as the salvation of democracy and the next step in evolution is being squandered on so many unbecoming uses." I mean - what - how do you explain that a) it's people, dude, they're gonna use whatever is around for stuff that you personally don't like, that's just how it works, man, and b) technology (or any tool or anything, really) isn't one single platonic thing that is somehow, I don't know, sullied, if any of it, anywhere, at any time, is used for something other than your One True Purpose. I, personally, happen to be a painfully naive and idealistic idiot, still somehow believing or hoping that we can really do amazing things with some combination of human brains and things that exist as a result of human brains, but knowing that somewhere, someone of the 7 billion people on this planet, is acting in a way not in accord with that plan doesn't really bother me.
Anyway, so by the time I got to the actual book and started reading about how before we had information science as a field, or other related developments, people used the word 'information' differently than we do now, given the past 100 years of history where our world view and language and society have developed and changed as they always do. Those pure and simple folk would find it quite silly the way we use the word 'information' today, not having any of the conceptual framework that evolved over decades of discovery that has by now worked its way into the general public consciousness. I think it's pretty cool how the very way we think of the world changes, and yes probably even important to understand how it comes about since, yes, we shouldn't be too attached to our current way of viewing the world, since it's a product of the present, contingent milieu and not strictly true. And maybe if I would have kept reading he would have come around to this point, and not just continued with 'It's obviously foolish of us to think of information in this way because people didn't used to'. In fact, I'm fairly confident there would be more interesting points made, plenty of things I could get on board with. The problem is, I was already so tired after all the somewhat less reasonable complaints, and didn't have the energy to wade through more of those in order to pluck out the good stuff. I bet this would really be worth reading if I were specifically researching attitudes about technology, and predictions, and the like. But I am not, and just for my own personal consumption, when the internet has granted me access to millions and millions of books and articles and videos and websites and communities, it just doesn't seem worth it to me to take the time to read the rest of this book.