THE NETWORK REVOLUTION: Confessions of a Computer Scientist.

Berkeley, CA:: And/Or Press,, (1982). First edition -. Very good in illustrated wrappers - minor wear to covers, light reading crease on spine. Scarce in the first edition. . First printing, a trade paperback, issued simultaneously with hardcover. Trained initially in astrophysics and as an astronomer, Vallee was involved in early research into artificial intelligence in the 1960s, and in 1972, he became the principal investigator on the National Science Foundation project for computer networking, which developed one of the first ARPANET conferencing systems, Planning Network (PLANET), which predated instant messaging by many years. This book, written in non-technical language focuses on how computers have put humanity at a crossroads and have the power to change our lives - which they have done far more than envisioned. With the 2023 explosion of Chat AI, an anecdote he quotes from the French author Collette is more appropriate than ever. She describes a cataloguer at Paris's Bibliotheque National meticulously filling out index cards without any sources or documents - when asked how he could do that he replied that the library did not have many German manuscripts of the 13th and 14th centuries, so he was making up entries for imaginary manuscripts that might have existed (p 43). Illustrated. References. x, 213 pp.