On Holon's use of the word "computer"

A reflection on the tension between messaging and envisioning.

During a recent lunch meeting with our CTO,

Brandon Baylor

, he raised the question: Is using the word “computer” helping us to explain and promote what we do or getting in the way of our journey?

This question has been raised before by many. This time, however, it acquired a new meaning for me given our increased interactions and relationships with partners and stakeholders as Holon evolves towards a new stage that is more open and public. This shift has motivated us to spend hours clarifying, debating and defining our narratives.

Holon was founded with the insight that a new type of technology is needed to achieve compositionality and collective cognition. We are in the middle of a transformational and historical inflection point. The pieces of science and technology required to assemble such a machine already exist, like the recent developments and new tools of applied category theory, unconventional computing, complexity science, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and systems engineering.

Contrasting the compositional machine that we are building at Holon with traditional “computers” has been useful to our journey so far. It has helped us frame our technology and effort as an attempt to progress cognitive technology, providing an opportunity to contrast the orthogonal nature of our approach with intelligence framed as a processing of information.

“Computing”, one could argue, is experiencing a golden moment, at least commercially and in terms of investment, with recent successes in the development of artificial intelligence, and with related technologies like chips or hardware, and even with the latest developments in quantum computing, that are setting the stage for decades, trillions of dollars and so much talent and life dedicated to progress this technology.

For Holon to challenge this era and declare the need for a different approach is bold and provocative. This has attracted many intellectuals and deep thinkers to pay attention to what we are doing. But we didn’t pursue this rhetoric just to be provocative or confrontational.

We sincerely believe that a new type of technology is needed to achieve the type of collective cognition that we need to create harmony and regenerate life, and that this new technology is based on ideas that are divergent and orthogonal from the ideas that support traditional computing.

But Brandon, in his question, is recognizing something important: that framing what we do at Holon as a “computer” is dragging us into intellectual arguments that, while fascinating and inspirational, are not conducive to what we need to do to grow and make this technology take the place it needs in History.

AirBnb is a new form of “hotel” but it is also something completely new. Uber is a new form of “taxi” but it is also something new. They didn’t fight or debate the meaning of what these industries are. What would be the point of them attempting to reappropriate the concept of “hotel” or “taxi” apart from getting stuck into a conceptual debate that distracts them from doing what they needed to do?

AirBnb and Uber changed forever the meaning of those concepts, maybe even by making them obsolete or extinct. All that without fighting for the ownership of the specific words but by inventing their own words: homestay brokering and ridesharing.

Pivoting is essential for startups, and I think this is the moment for us to pivot our language: From collective computing to something new. One idea is to describe what we do at Holon as a Compositional Engine. A whole new concept. Resembling the heritage of ideas like the Analytical Engine from Babbage and opening new territory for exploring and defining it by ourselves.

Computing will always be essential to what we do because any artificial attempt to achieve or enhance cognition is in fact within the scope of computer science — or it should be. However, starting a company like Holon is hard enough already. Let’s help our journey by pivoting our message in a direction that helps us and not one that hinders our progress.

This is not to take the path of least resistance as resistance is natural in disruptive innovations, and it is not an attempt to simplify the message as complexity is the source of life.

This is an examination and acknowledgement of the source and motivation that drives the confrontational take on a successful concept like computing. It is a recognition that the desire for a challenge comes also from a subconscious attempt to piggyback on its popularity and attention. It feels reactionary which in turns diminishes our effectiveness and power to innovate. It contradicts the statement that we are up for something new by clinging to something old.

Holon started with the insight that computing has to evolve. If we truly believe that then even the word computing has to be left behind.

Holon: conceiving the Compositional Engine.

What do you think?