Computers in Gibson's World

Computers Fail to Save Neuromancer Society by Simon A. Rakov:

Despite all of its application of computer technology, Neuromancer offers no hope for the computer as a tool of salvation in society. When Wintermute succeeds in his expansion, he becomes the matrix, but this transformation causes no changes in society or even in Case's situation. "How are things different? You running the world now? You God?" Case asks the former Wintermute (270). "Things aren't different. Things are things," the computer replies (Ibid.). Computers have not saved the society. Instead, the philosophy of instant gratification, and the intermingling of human tissue with electronic circuitry, have ruined it. McCoy Pauley's greatest wish is to be erased, and his wish is fulfilled at the end of the book; the human machine is thus denied and despised. In Gibson's view, the computer will bring us a flood of information and satisfaction, but to such an extent that the human race will no longer be recognizable as humanity.

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