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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out of Control (Kelly book) | 1/1 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Control_(Kelly_book) | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T08:56:49.865688+00:00 | kb-cron |
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World (ISBN 978-0201483406) is a 1992 book by Kevin Kelly. Major themes in Out of Control are cybernetics, emergence, self-organization, complex systems, negentropy and chaos theory. The book can be seen as a work of techno-utopianism.
== Summary == The book's central theme is that several fields of contemporary science and philosophy point in the same direction: intelligence is not organized in a centralized structure but is much more like a beehive composed of small, simple components. Kelly applies this view to bureaucratic organizations, intelligent computers, and the human brain.
== Reception == Although the book was not widely reviewed upon its initial release in 1992, it gained visibility, was reviewed, and was extensively cited in subsequent years. Reviews often discussed Kelly's hive-mind analogy as a metaphor for the New Economy. Reviewers have called the book a "mind-expanding exploration" (Publishers Weekly) and "the best of an important new genre" (Forbes ASAP). Critics of the book have contended that its position precludes a critical approach to politics and social power.
== References ==
== Further reading == The book's homepage (includes the complete book online)