Our economy's fucked up. It's so fucked up that a charismatic, energetic new President alone won't be able to fix it. You can place the blame on whomever you may like but this current situation was never any one person's responsibility. If the problem can be created by one person or one group, than it can just as easily be solved. Everyone contributes to the shape and direction of our economy, and in turn everyone is affected by it. No single mind can dictate how it moves and there lies it's strength, beauty, and danger. It sounds like one of those science fiction movies (think "I, Robot") in which the supercomputer does something no one predicted while still following the laws that govern it, and fucks everyone up.

In the beginning the difference between machines and humans were crystal clear. Computers were horribly inflexible because they were limited by simple algorithms due to insufficient technology. Deep Blue, the chess supercomputer that defeated world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997 was confused as an achievement in AI but it was only an achievement in computational power. Chess masters were better than average players not because they can predict more moves ahead, but because they can see the chess board at a higher level. Deep Blue won only because it had the ability to compute millions of moves per second, but in terms of software there was nothing remarkable. Computer science was always thought to have this element of "soul-lessness" that seperated it from humans. Now this difference is becoming grayer and grayer as collaboration, a large depository of library code, and higher level programming languages are becoming available. Like the economy, we are beginning to create code that is more powerful, complicated, and unpredictable. Sooner or later we're going to see software which will pass the Turing Test and shift the way in which we think of ourselves as this issue that has always existed yet repeatedly ignored will be forced into the faces of the most stubborn. Ideally. Unfortunately, passing judgment has never been our strong suite.