> But I love the author's idea of the machine as a "collaborator" My understanding is that this idea was at the very heart of how/why modern personal computers

> But I love the author's idea of the machine as a "collaborator" My understanding is that this idea was at the very heart of how/why modern personal computers developed from batch-processing systems. I remember reading a quote from one of the central figures in this development (I believe it was J.C.R. Licklider —definitely from the book "The Dream Machine" which has a good bit of focus on him), which suggested that the ideal role of computers was to leave us in a position where our thoughts are purely creative, where all thought in support of some direction we've decided on is dealt with by a computer instead, and we just make creative decisions. That said—this is of course some cool new progress in that direction :)