"Man-Computer Symbiosis" is the title of a work by J. C. R. Licklider, which was published in 1960.[1][2][3] The paper represented what we would today consider a fundamental, or key text of the modern computing revolution.[4]
The work describes something of Licklider's vision for a complementary ("symbiotic") relationship between humans and computers at a potential time in the future. According to Bardini, Licklider envisioned a future time when machine cognition ("cerebration") would surpass and become independent of human direction, as a basic stage of development within human evolution.[5] Jacucci et al. describe Licklider's vision as being the very tight coupling of human brains and computing machines.[3]
As a necessary pre-requisite of human-computer symbiosis, Licklider conceived of a "thinking center",[2] incorporating the functions of libraries with new developments in information technology, and connected to other such centers through computer networks.[6][7]
Streeter identifies the main empirical element of the work as the time and motion analysis, which is shown under Part 3 of the work.[4] In addition he identified two reasons for Licklider to have considered such a symbiotic human computer relationship to be beneficial: firstly, that it might bring about an advantage emerging from the use of a computer, such that there are similarities with the necessary methodology of such a use (i.e. trial and error), to the methodology of problem solving through play, and secondarily, because of the advantage which results from using computers in battle situations.[4] Foster states Licklider sought to promote computer use in order to "augment human intellect by freeing it from mundane tasks".[8]
Streeter considers Licklider to be positing an escape from the limitations of the mode of computer use during his time, which was batch processing.[4] Russell thinks Licklider was stimulated by an encounter with the newly developed PDP-1.[9]