The concept, conceived by Marie-France Ashpool, of a piece of software acting in symbiosis with a group of people - and set in motion with a particular intent geared towards the far future - was indeed the inspiration for PM. Other concepts in the book (and in Gibson's other works) have also influenced me to a great extent. One consistent theme is the dynamic of wealth and/or power and the effect it has on its possessors. In the sequel, there's a discussion about an extraordinarily wealthy individual whose wealth has sort of taken on a life of its own insomuch as that it has become a force of its own - not sentient, of course, but it doesn't have to be, anymore than a river or a black hole or gravity need be sentient to be a force of greater magnitude than one man or all of them. Meanwhile, the Tessier-Ashpool storyline (which is further revealed in the two sequels) is the most fascinating thing I have ever come across, whether in fiction or real life.
At any rate, what I hope to build out of all of this is a sort of "machine" that will be self-perpetuating and capable of acting on the environment in such a way as to continually transform the various ways in which human society is organized. This is the first time in the entirety of human history in which it is reasonably possible to organize some large portion of the world's intelligent, well-informed, and honest people into a single entity that would be capable of acting in many ways like a sort of parallel government, working towards goals that most every such person shares despite their differences.
I have a lot more to say on this general subject, and hopefully I'll manage to compose it into a single document in the near future, which I would show to you first. Such a document would have to possess the characteristics of a virus if it were to have the intended impact; it would have to be among the most persuasive things ever written. To take two lurid examples, it would have to be on the order of the New Testament or the Communist Manifesto - except it would have to make sense. Of course, it would not need to persuade anywhere near as many people as either of those things; one clever person is potentially worth a million mediocre people. All in all, the most important factor here is that one need only write a certain number of words in a certain combination in order to bring about an entity with more soft power than is held by any particular nation. It's been done before, and without the advantages of the communications age, and it will almost certainly be done again. This is one of those concepts that appears obvious upon thinking about it but is often ignored. Still, these are all scattered thoughts, only mildly connected, but I hope to synthesize them soon.
At any rate, Robert Green and I are gearing up to do a web series on punditry and related issues which, if done properly, could provide me with the chance to actually have some noticeable effect on the reputations of Friedman et al and hopefully start a chain reaction of soft power and influence that would in turn allow me to finally go after people in such a way that they are either forced to respond or will lose their own soft power. D Magazine is also paying me $1,500 for a hit piece on Mark Davis, Rush Limbaugh's co-host, and I expect to have my finances in such a position soon that I can concentrate entirely on PM.
Been meaning to write you about Neuromancer, I finished it some time ago. I did not really get into it until about page 100, and after that I read the rest of in two sittings. It was the first book-length science fiction I have ever read, unless you count Jules Verne or some Kurt Vonnegut titles. I was surprised how dismal a world it depicts, all that technology, but mostly applied in the furtherance of hustling, self-defense, crime and dynastic power-maintenance. The AIs seemed more congenially motivated than many of the people. Poor Case reminded me of a guy from Sartre or from some of Hemingways gloomier stories, lucky to just survive but not so consistently lucky in keeping some dignity, despite trying.
Given that I came to the book from a different world than you did, it is probably unlikely that I would react similarly to you, but the book did sort of influence me when I was writing the latest functional description of Project PM--you will notice the new description expects the network to do a lot more, and does not attempt to define it down to a few little pass-around transactions as my pre-Neuromancer description did. So yeah, you can create a program and eventually turn loose of it, and let it continue on its own (to do good things--hopefully), so the program becomes more real, than us.
Let me know when you are putting any new pieces online anywhere: I miss reading your stuff.