Rating: 
Summary: Giddy Plagiarism
Review: I agree with the "Chicago reader" who said this book could've used an editor, but it's one of the best poorly-written books I've read too.Kelly's cheerleading for the decentralized, "hive-mind" mentality smacks of the giddy 1940's Tomorrowland propaganda -- oblivious to market realities, people's resistance to change and the fact that simple technologies always win head-to-head competitions with more complex technologies. Yet he makes a valiant attempt to pull a Douglas Hofstadter, and write a "Godel Escher Bach" of future technologies. None of his examples or conclusions are original, but that doesn't diminish the cumulative power of his argument.
Rating:
Summary: Is There a Swarm in Our Future?
Review: Kelly goes on a wide-ranging journey through evolutionary theory, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and market economics; he admits that, if "cybernetics" was still in vogue, his book would be an update on thinking in that field. He believes, with considerable evidence backing him up, that our technological future will not be a Metropolis-like scenario of industrial gray steel; Technos and Bios are converging to create a neo-biological civilization made up of both humans and "living" machines. This digital culture will be characterized by the swarm, with many minds directing one superorganism. These trends, Kelly believes, mean the end of centralized control; our social and economic future will be decentralized and distributed, essentially "out of control."
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Summary: Beehive versus Beethoven
Review: Kelly's book is certainly thought-provoking and entertaining but in the end I couldn't escape the nagging sense that I was reading a corporate brochure commissioned by Wintel. Sure, the idea that a higher intelligence can emerge from a network of lower organisms, as a hive emerges out of a swarm of bees, can be a liberating one; as if maybe millions of bored drones keystroking in their cubicles, contrary to what common sense and Dilbert will tell you, are collectively making something brilliant. What Kelly and other copywriters of the digital era (like Negroponte) forget is that good science writing has to have at least a healthy smidgen of skepticism, and here that might include looking at some of the bugs inherent in the system: such as what it's like to stare at a computer all day, or work in a chip factory in southeast asia, or how technology has put a lot of people out of work. Kelly forgets that hive-like societies, whether formed of bees or Microsoft employees, tend to de-value the individual at the expense of conformity. I have yet to see a human hive, networked by whatever brand of computer, that could create something like a work of art that could move me, not that such things matter anymore. I'll take Beethoven anyday.
Rating: 
Summary: A Beautiful Portrait of Our Future
Review: Kevin Kelly's book, written a decade ago, is, for the most part, still relevant today. Anyone interested in the subject matter is encouraged to read it, with the exception of those already well informed on the workings of mobs and virtual evolution. It is worth noting that Kevin Kelly's book is available online at his website.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended for anyone interested in the future.
Review: Love this book. A great introduction to a world of ideas and concepts about evolution and technologies that are already shaping our (near) future. Horizon-expanding ideas--indeed, the chapter on Borges Library literally had my brain "buzzing" with activity and a restless night of wild dreams on the subject. As the author states himself, he does not write or develop anything new, rather, he creates exposure to the fascinating work of others. Though it is not difficult or dry, the entire book is concepts--not for someone looking for a light novel.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and provocative
Review: The ideas in this book may be thought by some to be radical or far-fetched, but to those readers familiar with the behavior of complex dynamical systems, they seem quite natural. The book emphasizes the theoretical aspects of complex systems, but some natural examples of them are discussed. The author, in spite of his choice of title for the book, is not threatened by the consequences of artifically creating these systems. After all, we live and have evolved in a universe that is even more complex than the author describes. The fact that we humans can now speed up the process of creation of these systems should be a source of wonder instead of fear. What makes this book valuable reading is that the author emphasizes the collective behavior of dynamical systems. Too often the reductionist trend in Western science obscures how the system works together, how its many parts collectively induce an emergent behavior not at all apparent in the systems "equations of motion". Since the book is written for a popular audience, the approach is qualitative and allegorical. This purely descriptive approach does however allow a more general overview of complex dynamical systems im many different areas. The author gives a fascinating discussion of swarm systems and their advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages according to the author is that they are "nonunderstandable"; but here he is mistaken, for complex systems can be understood, although such an understanding takes some effort anc computational horsepower. Also, in his discussion of network behavior the author asserts that it is "counterintuitive" and quotes "Braess's paradox" as proof of this. Dietrich Braess discovered that adding routes to an already congested network will slow it down. There are examples of this, but it is not a hard-and-fast rule, as network engineers who employ load balancing can attest to. Adding time-dependent paths can work to reduce congestion, this time-dependence not addressed in Braess's formulation of the paradox. Some more interesting discussions in the book are allegorical, but they serve to encourage "thinking out of the box":1. The effects of isolation and boredom on the human mind: the need for the physical body to temper unruly constructions of the mind. 2. The chameleon riddle: what color will a chameleon take on if put in front of a mirror? 3.The Prisoner's dilemna. This has got to be the most widely used tool for encouraging cooperation, in spite of its simplicity and impracticality. Computer simulation of the Prisoner's dilemna with 1000 players has revealed phenomena familiar in evolutionary studies, such as parasitism, spontaneously emerging symbiosis, and long-term stable coexistence between species. 4. Physical systems as computational processes; this is the most radical of the ideas in the book, but the author does not expound upon it in any great detail though. 5. The Biosphere experiment; I only read brief news reports of this while it was going on, so it was interesting to read here a detailed account of it. 6. The need for industry to adopt "biological" methodologies: complexity is more efficient, less wasteful, and more robust. 7. Network economics: The "network company" of the 21st century will be distributed (no single location), decentralized, collaborative (outsourcing to competitors!), and adaptive. This chapter is the most practical of all those in the book. 8. The role of encryption in a digital economy, particularly "encryption-metering" and digital cash. 9. The importance of simulation in defense and industry in the 21st century: simulate before you build, simulate before you buy, and simulate before you fight. 10. The evolution machine and its resultant creation of sex; the consequent discussion of genetic/evolutionary programming. The differences between 'Lamarckian' and 'Darwinian" evolutionary programs. 11. Postdarwinism: why have no new species been detected naturally or even in computer simulations? The central thesis of Neodarwinism is that only the environment can select mutations, but not induce or direct them. Since this book was published in 1994, there have been many advances in the areas that the author discusses. Evolutionary programming has taken off, with many applications in finance, biology, network engineering, and large-scale circuit design. Swarm robots are currently under development, with deployment just years away. Computational/intelligent agents are now managing networks, with autonomous agents just around the corner.Encryption and smart-card technologies have mushroomed along with intelligent computer virus detection. Simulation is now thought of as a "must-do" in every phase of business and industry, and simulations are now thought of as sophisticated enough to model real-world situations without any experimental "validation". Indeed, technological advancement and its application is moving forward at a dizzying rate, and seemingly...out of control?
Rating:
Summary: A mind-expanding ride
Review: This book is a fascinating roller-coaster ride through a host of emerging technologies which will no doubt have an influence on all our futures. Kevin Kelly demonstrates quite convincingly how the technological is becoming more biological. Artificial intelligence, robotics and our knowledge of ants and bees has produced insect-like robots capable of smart collective behaviour. Genetics, evolutionary theory and massively parallel connectionist machines (the fastest computers on the planet) are yielding emerging fields like evolutionary software design where the computer code is "bred" rather than being written. Open, closed, complex, self-organising, centrally controlled and distributed systems are all examined and contrasted, including everything from Borgian libraries to zero-sum games. Kelly tells us of his personal experience in Biosphere II, and contrasts the paradigmatic differences between the made and the born. What is made by us tends to be minimal, mechanical, predictable and maintenance intensive (even in our "autonomous" systems). By contrast, when we consider the different magnitudes of information in a blueprint compared with a DNA strand, we see that the born is vastly more complex, organic, unpredictable and constantly adapting to environmental changes. The book on the whole is accessible and a real technological page turner. It will be of particular interest to anyone with some background in computing, artificial intelligence, biology, information theory or cognitive science.
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Summary: Nature Creates New Things Out of Nothing Every Day
Review: This book must have been as much fun for Kevin Kelly to write as it is to read. It's a little long but very easy to understand. It'll make you think and you are sure to enjoy thinking about the ideas and examples in here. A more correct title might be "Out of Centralized Control." Kelly's point is that Nature is not a command and control monolith, but instead, a network of relatives, friends, neighbors, and sometimes predators. Nature does not control the Universe so much as it encourages cooperation within the Universe. The examples Kelly gives in the first few pages set the tone of the rest of the book. One is the flock of geese, which somehow knows its migration path from hemisphere to hemisphere even though none of the geese in the flock have ever flown it before. As Kelly shows us, there are plenty of surprises in Nature. Uncertainty is built in. That's life ! Some readers might find it hard to believe that Nature is not particularly concerned about efficiency. It doesn't mind duplication, redundancy, and a little waste. It fact, it wants these things because they lead us to flexibility. Kelly's point in all this seems to be that Nature does not play by the numbers. It might be even harder for some readers to believe, at first, that Nature creates new things out of nothing every day. But, Kelly will win you over on that point and many more. His "Nine Laws of God" which sum up the book in the last chapter made me want to read it a second time. One nice companion to this book would be "Morphic Resonance and the The Presence of the Past: The Habits of Nature" by Ruppert Sheldrake. That book presents a theory that is considered radical by many, yet the critics usually concede that it's well reasoned and fills many of the gaps in our knowledge of Nature. If you'd like to think about the theological implications of Kelly's ideas, try a few books about process theology, particularly these: "A Basic Introduction to Process Theology" by Robert Mesle, "What is Process Theology?" by Robert Mellert, and "Ominipotence and Other Theological Mistakes" by Charles Hartshorne.
Rating: 
Summary: Groundbreaking book, but newer titles offer more insight
Review: This book was groundbreaking in 1994; its insights have been improved upon by more recent writing on the same subjects. If you are interested in this topic, I recommend considering Steven Johnson's EMERGENCE before you buy this book; Johnson discussions some of Kelly's ideas, but offers are more up-to-date analysis of the phenomenon of non-hierarchical/centralized models of organization. Otherwise, this book is valuable for its historical positioning--how things seemed and were seen almost a decade ago.
Rating:
Summary: Science Reality Closing The Gap On Science Fiction
Review: This is an exceptional collection of scientific ideas and discoveries. This book was a fascinating read for me. I am not a scholar by any means and I admit that some of the information was above me, yet I can say that the information was presented in such a manner that intellectuals, as well as non intellectuals, would get kick out the plethora of information, as well as the various twist and turns the book takes. It would be nice to have more of this sort of writing available. Kevin Kelly certainly has his own style. I happen to like his unique style of writing and layout. This book takes you on short little scientific journeys. You never quite know where you are going to end up next and I happen to like that. This book will be enjoyed by readers who are into what is happening in the scientific community, and readers who like ideas about the future of scientific discovery. But, you could say, why not just pick up any of the latest scientific magazines or journals? Well, the information contained in "Out Of Control" follows a specific path. Even though we have scientific snippets, like in magazines, there is an overall theme, a pattern--the direction, our author believes, science will lead us. You also get a vast look at the variety that is science, technology, information and speculation. Why would you ever need to read science fiction with books like this in print regarding the astounding real world? I would like to recommend this book to people who like science fiction. For me, non fiction is where it's at folks! You just have to be able to get your hands on books like this to know that fiction, ain't go nothin, on non fiction.
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