The impact of increased availability of all human knowledge on the internet is only begging to be felt by modern society now. Ray Kurtzweil refers to the advance and paradigm shift of the internet containing all human knowledge as the “Singularity”; it is defined as a point in time in the near future where machines will have greater intelligence then their human masters.[i]
The primary example of H.G. Wells oracle from the time machine can be seen in Wikipedia directly; this and the Web 2.0 standard where the machines may now understand the content and data presented via HTML 4.2 and HTML 5.0 standards; this results in the ability for anyone with an internet connection to have access to the “Sum of all Knowledge”; the result of this is the “Law of Accelerating Returns” [ii], where technologies not previously related to the internet maintain rapid returns and breakthroughs with respect to innovation.
Some brief examples of rapid technological evolution include computers and computational power; however areas such as engineering are seeing exponential returns with technologies such as DMLS which leverage the availability of computational power and information.[iii] This foundational technological revolution will impact both industrial and non-industrial product development and manufacturing.
The most apparent shift is now occurring with print media; where the access to all print media online has spawned the “ebook” reader; where companies such as Apple have capitalized with products like the “iPad”; where your magazines and news papers are no longer physical but digital. I recently saw Willim Gibson lecture on how the “Publishing Industry” must adapt to the new paradigm of point of use printing where your book purchase would have the vendor produce the hard or soft copy on site with modern printing machines[iv]; not only as a means of necessity but also as a means to reduce the global carbon footprint; in addition to this he also stated that modern science fiction authors have far too many variables in society to draw arc’s to be used as storytelling tools. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, he coined the term “Cyberspace”.
The rate of technological change will increase; following this change the rate of differentiation with respect to complexity and innovation in all facets of human life will also increase. These rates are driven by Moore’s Law, the Law of Exponential Returns and the availability of all human knowledge on the internet. These facts will allow traditional fields of science to evolve in an exponential manner; Medicine may finally conquer ageing and all related diseases with various projects such as the Methuselah Foundation[v] and Immortality Institute[vi]; culture will become more granular and fragmented to meet the individual desire for unique consumption. Even now within academia the traditional humanities are being supplanted by modern neuro-psychiatry;
These shifts are occurring because the internet facilitates communication amongst an otherwise separate group of individuals; since human’s are far better at problem solving as groups when a group of a large enough size has access to all known information on a given subject the rate of change for that given subject becomes proportional to the group size.
The other change is that privacy will be nonexistent with the use of search engine data and social networks; current impacts are being resolved in various courts regarding the public disclosure of personal information[vii].
The impacts of these changes to myself and my children will be that we will live longer, healthier lives with fewer resources and a smaller more conscious ecological and technological footprint, our work will be different in that we will specialize in fields that are considered non-traditional; we will consume our media in a self directed fashion where we consume only the media we are interested in and we will have less privacy then our grandparents.
References
[i] Kurtzweil, R.; Viking Adult; The Singularity is Near (September 22, 2005) ISBN: 0670033847
[ii] Kurtzweil, R.; Viking Adult; The Singularity is Near (September 22, 2005) ISBN: 0670033847
[iii] N.A.; 3T RPD Ltd. Direct Metal Laser Sintering [Online] Video (26 Oct 2009)
Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZLGLzyMKn4&feature=related (Accessed November 5th 2010)
[iv] Gibson, William, Young, Norah; CBC Full Interview of William Gibson on Zero History [Online] MP3 File, Available From: http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2010/10/full-interview-william-gibson-on-zero-history/ (Accessed on November 5th 2010)
[v] N.A. Methsualah Project About the Methuselah Project [Online] World Wide Web, Available From: http://www.mfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=mj_about_mission (Accessed on November 5th 2010)
[vi] N.A. Immortality Institue About the Imortality Institute [Online] World Wide Web, Available From: http://www.imminst.org/about (Accessed on November 5th 2010)
[vii] Wright, A. Marie; Kakalik, S. John; ACM The erosion of privacy [Online] PDF Document, Available from: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=270913.270922 (Accessed on November 5th 2010)
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