"The distinction is not between 'natural' and 'artificial', but between semantic and dynamic: intention and behaviour." #readingToday

If the continuous adaptation of a smart environment is the future of information technology, if our lives and future are to be entrusted to decisions encoded in embedded technology, then we have to recall basic laws of scale and stability to make them safe for a general public. One cannot sail a ship through an electronic storm anymore than one wrought by wind and rain. We shall have to stop thinking of technology as something invulnerable that is merely used by humans, and view it as part of a greater cybernetic ecology all around us. The key distinction in an environment is not between 'natural' and 'artificial', but between semantic and dynamic: intention and behaviour. Biology has already drawn these lines, and through us, it will integrate the inanimate with the animate in information systems, until we no longer see a pertinent difference between the two.

In Search of Certainty, Mark Burgess, 2013