Digital dilemmas
Jan 23rd 2003
From The Economist print edition
economist.com
Despite the dotcom boom and bust, the computer and telecommunications revolution has barely begun. Over the next few decades, the internet and related technologies really will profoundly transform society, argues David Manasian
"GOVERNMENTS of the industrial world, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from cyberspace, the new home of mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather."
Ah, it all seems so long ago. In 1996 John Perry Barlow, a former cattle rancher, lyricist for a rock band, the Grateful Dead, and commentator on technology, posted these words in an online discussion group. His "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" was an 800-word credo which claimed that users of the internet inhabited a new world of creativity, equality and justice which would forever remain beyond the reach of existing governments. "We will create a civilisation of the mind in cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before," he concluded with a flourish.
It is hard to believe today, but Mr Barlow's musings struck a chord at the time, spreading rapidly through the internet. The declaration encapsulated the exhilaration and wonder of millions of people as they logged on to the world wide web for the first time. It really did seem possible that the internet had launched a spontaneous revolution that might lead to a brave new borderless world.
Seven years later, Mr Barlow's claims sound absurd: just another example of the 1990s hype that produced the dotcom boom and bust. The internet, it seems, has turned out to be simply another appliance, a useful new medium like radio or television, not something likely to usher in a "civilisation of the mind". Cyber gurus like Mr Barlow have also lost heart, and now issue equally exaggerated warnings about the internet's strangulation by government and corporate interests. With the help of governments, big entertainment companies are trying to "control everything that we know", Mr Barlow says. "The fight about this will, in my view, determine the future of humanity." Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford professor who is also a leading commentator on the internet, is almost equally apocalyptic: "The existing dinosaurs are succeeding in stifling the creativity inherent in this new medium."
The taste for hyperbole of Mr Barlow, Mr Lessig and their sort may be easy to mock, but they are right in their fundamental claim: the internet and its related technologies are capable of transforming society. Far from being over, the computer and telecoms revolution that created the internet has barely begun. These technologies will change almost every aspect of our lives?private, social, cultural, economic and political. In some areas, the changes may be marginal, but in most they will be profound, and unprecedented.
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The reason to think that the internet revolution will not only resume but accelerate is that advances in its underlying technologies show no signs of slowing down. The power of computer chips continues to race ahead. Moore's law?according to which the power of a computer chip will double about every 18 months (see chart 1)?has proved to be true since 1965, when it was first propounded by Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel, a chip maker. Intel is confident that it will be able to maintain this pace of improvement in silicon for another 15 years. Recent breakthroughs by researchers at IBM and Hewlett Packard in molecular electronics lead many experts to believe that Moore's law will continue to apply for perhaps another 50 years. Similarly dramatic advances in storage and transmission technologies are also in prospect.
Meanwhile, existing or impending technology is being applied ever more widely. Victor Zue, director of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, expects high-speed access to the internet to be virtually free in rich countries within five years. His laboratory's Project Oxygen is building an office on MIT's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that will be wired to demonstrate the kind of ?pervasive, human-centred computing?, driven by voice and involving a range of devices, that he believes will become possible in the near future. Many of its components are already being tested at MIT's laboratory and by its corporate partners. |
