Book Report – Life in Code by Ellen Ullman

Software engineer Ellen Ullman seems pretty cool and self-aware. Reading her latest book Life in Code, one is left with the indelible image of a woman who’s been taking risks her entire adult life, from piloting a plane (“the indescribable pleasure of holding a powerful machine while it held me”) to tackling new computer languages (“One must… find a ferocious determination, a near-passionate obsession to solve a problem, meanwhile summoning the pleasures of the hunt”). Never one to saunter down Easy Street, Ullman endured corporate nonsense within a misogynistic culture during a twenty-year run as a programmer in Silicon Valley, dating back to when that moniker was first being used. What makes this such an appealing read is the author’s history of inspirational road-less-traveled decisions all the while wrestling with imposter syndrome. One need not be qualified to take the next career leap as much as have Ullman’s craving to engage in challenging work while proving naysayers wrong. We root for humans like her.

The book’s passages reference decades long past and paint the picture of the early, lonely days in programming including a two-year stretch during which Ullman barely spoke with anyone at work. It’s not clear when exactly that was but it’s not hard to imagine why she’d start writing as an outlet, publishing her first book in 1997. It was shortly thereafter that she was offered a job by the co-founders of Google, then in its infancy. She turned Messrs. Page and Brin down flat, citing burnout but confesses herein that she had been feeling like a fraud. “Curse of the self-taught,” writes Ullman, noting that she only had “islands of knowledge, and between them are chasms into which you will fall in humiliating failure, a fear that followed me from the first time I learned how to code.” For the author to express regret over forgoing the opportunity to have been one of the search engine giant’s earliest hires would be so basic and – dare I say – beneath her. In reality, she had been glad to leave behind the boys-with-beer-bottles culture in a gamble perhaps bigger than attempting to become a substantial contributor in something called symmetrical multiprocessing, the one through which she might steadily publish essays, articles, and books.

The 6,000-lb. mainframe in the corner that must be addressed is that of man vs. machine. At issue is the coming of the so-called post-human: “a nonbiological, sentient entity whose capabilities would exceed those of human beings.” Scoff all you like, but for at least the past 15 years Ullman has been mulling the concept of a spiritual being that would surpass – or even control – us, as soon as this very century. Think Steve Mnuchin comes off a bit robotic on the Sunday morning news shows? [Editor’s note: You’re right. He does. Not to mention that he’s super weird and possibly Satan himself.] Try envisioning your great-grandchildren’s Treasury Secretary as an actual robot, pre-programmed to recite double-speak about impending tax reform. “The ensuing debate,” says Ullman “inherits the questions that once belonged to philosophy and religion – and brings up the same ancient, deep-seated confusions.” I’ll say. Ullman concludes that robots aren’t becoming us, rather it’s the other way around as we slowly but surely cede all power to the technology in our lives, submitting entirely to its attendant pleasures. And to think we once envisioned a relatively simple future built on the excitement of cars flying, sidewalks moving. Jane, stop this crazy thing indeed.