William Gibsons OP-ED contribution in the NYT’s is great — a must read.

“Google’s Earth — By WILLIAM GIBSON

… We never imagined that artificial intelligence would be like this. We imagined discrete entities. Genies. We also seldom imagined (in spite of ample evidence) that emergent technologies would leave legislation in the dust, yet they do. In a world characterized by technologically driven change, we necessarily legislate after the fact, perpetually scrambling to catch up, while the core architectures of the future, increasingly, are erected by entities like Google.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/opinion/01gibson.html?_r=1&hp