# Robert Taylor

Research administrator who funded ARPANET and later led Xerox PARC's computer science lab; co-author of the thesis that computers would become a communication medium.

**Robert W. Taylor** (1932–2017) directed ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office, where he initiated and funded the ARPANET — the network from which the internet grew. He went on to found and lead the Computer Science Laboratory at Xerox PARC and, later, Digital Equipment Corporation's Systems Research Center.

## Key work in the library

- [The Computer as a Communication Device](/docs/computer-as-communication-device.md) (1968), co-authored with [J.C.R. Licklider](/wiki/licklider.md).

## Significance

Taylor turned [Licklider](/wiki/licklider.md)'s vision of human-computer symbiosis into funded, built reality. The 1968 paper's claim — that networked computers would become a medium for human community, not just computation — is a direct ancestor of the communitarian, [decentralized](/wiki/decentralization.md) spirit the Independent Internet aims to restore.

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## Backlinks

Pages that link here:

- [The Computer as a Communication Device](/docs/computer-as-communication-device.md) — Licklider and Taylor argue that networked computers will become a medium for human communication and community, not just computation.