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Information gathered for the 1990 to 1995
Elon University/Pew Internet Imaginging the Internet Predictions
Database was a partial inspiration for the formulation of the
questions for the 2004 Experts Survey. The 2004 questions were
purposely constructed in a many-layered manner to spur discussion,
and while they are rooted in some previous predictive statements
they do not represent the beliefs or research conclusions of
any of the researchers. This page offers some background - a
backstory of sorts - tied to the 2004 questions that helps put
things in context.
Prediction on social networks
By 2014, use of the internet will increase the size of people's
social networks far beyond what has traditionally been the case.
This will enhance trust in society, as people have a wider range
of sources from which to discover and verify information about
job opportunities, personal services, common interests, and
products.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the general
drift of the commentary skews in agreement with this prediction
on social networks. However, some predictors saw problems with
the potential for a digital divide, overt commercialism and/or
the evils associated with life in a high-speed world to spoil
this dream. Here are a few selections:
- In his 1995 book "Democracy and Technology," Richard Sclove
writes: "One function of democratic community is to provide
a social foundation for self-governance and individual political
empowerment. This suggests that community boundaries ought normally
to remain roughly contiguous with the territorial boundaries
defining formal political accountability and agency. Yet the
criterion of local self-governance is breached if involvement
in spatially dispersed social networks grows to subvert a collective
capacity to govern the locales people physically inhabit. And
the criterion of egalitarian empowerment is breached if coveys
of technorich cronies are empowered to telelobby senators, while
technopoor neighbors are excluded from the circuit."
- In a 1995 online essay, Justin Hall makes the following statement:
"I encourage all my friends in the commercial sector to be generous,
and trust that their product is worth talking about. Leave the
channels open for people to do so. Otherwise, the Internet will
accelerate the self-loathing and dissatisfaction that comes
with advertising's endless call for immediate gratification.
Identified by and targeted for our product consumption, we will
find ourselves receiving more personalized mail from products
than from people. They will know us, and they will manipulate
us. We will end up hating the Internet, and ourselves."
- In a 1995 article for The Nation, adapted from his book "Rebels
Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial
Revolution," Kirkpatrick Sale urges people to step back and
question technology: "This transformation is, without anyone
being prepared for it, overwhelming the communities and institutions
and customs that once were the familiar stanchions of our lives
... No wonder there are some people who are Just Saying No.
They have a great variety of stances and tactics, but the technophobes
and technoresisters out there are increasingly coming together
under the banner that dates to those attackers of technology
of two centuries ago, the Luddites ... These would include those
several million people in all the industrial nations whose jobs
have simply been automated out from under them or have been
sent overseas as part of the multinationals' global network,
itself built on high-tech communications ... They may include,
too, quite a number of those whose experience with high technology
in the home or office has left them confused or demeaned, or
frustrated by machines too complex to understand, much less
to repair, or assaulted and angered by systems that deftly invade
their privacy, or deny them credit, or turn them into ciphers.
Whereever ... neo-Luddites may be found, they are attempting
to bear witness to the secret little truth that lies at the
heart of modern experience: Whatever its presumed benefits,
of speed, or ease, or power, or wealth, industrial technology
comes at a price, and in the contemporary world that price is
ever rising and ever threatening."
Prediction on attacks on network infrastructure
At least one devastating attack will occur in the next 10 years
on the networked information infrastructure or the country's
power grid.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the commentary
skews in agreement with the prediction that malicious attacks
could be launched on the system. Individuals who discounteded
the likelihood of attacks tended to be people who spoke out
against government regulation (through key-escrow encryption,
etc.) that could take away civil liberties. Here are a few examples:
- In a 1995 article for The New York Times, John Markoff talks
with Eric Schmidt, chief technology officer for Sun Microsystems,
regarding computer viruses. Markoff writes: "'I think [viruses]
will be an extraodinarily serious problem over the next few
years,' said Eric Schmidt, chief technical officer at Sun Microsystems
Inc. 'If you believe the theory that nearly all personal computers
will be on corporate networks or online services in the next
two or three years, then this is a problem that could touch
all PC users worldwide ... There are criminals in the world,
and some of them are programmers. With computer networks, they
have an amplifying effect that they've never had before. If
I were a criminal with a gun, I might attack one person. But
with a computer network, I can attack a million people at a
time. It's like an atomic bomb.'"
- In their 1994 book "Firewalls and Internet Security," Steven
Bellovin and William Cheswick write: "The advent of mobile computing
will also stress traditional security architectures. We see
this today, to some extent, with the need to pass X11 through
the firewall. It will be more important in the future. How does
one create a firewall that can protect a portable computer,
one that talks to its home network via a public IP network?
Certainly, all communication can be encrypted, but how is the
portable machine itself to be protected from network-based attacks?
What services must it offer, in order to function as a mobile
host? What about interactions with local facilities, such as
printers or disk space? The face of the network security problem
will certainly change over the years. But we’re certain of one
thing: it won’t go away."
- In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Peter Schwartz, co-founder
and president of Global Business Network and author of "The
Art of the Long View," interviews Andrew Marshall, a national
security researcher/consultant whose work included stints at
the RAND think tank in 1949 and 22 years at the Pentagon, under
six presidents. Schwartz quotes Marshall saying: "There may
well be an increase in guerrilla warfare because new technologies
may increase our vulnerability to it. We are living in the equivalent
of the early 1920s, when tanks, airplanes, and later radar and
radio were new, and people weren't sure what they were or how
to use them. We have only preliminary ideas about how today's
technology is going to change warfare. But it will. In the old
world, if I wanted to attack something physical, there was one
way to get there. You could put guards and guns around it, you
could protect it. But a database - or a control system - usually
has multiple pathways, unpredictable routes to it, and seems
intrinsically impossible to protect. That's why most efforts
at computer security have been defeated."
Prediction on digital products
In 2014, it will still be the case that the vast majority of
internet users will easily be able to copy and distribute digital
products freely through anonymous peer-to-peer networks.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the commentary
skews in agreement with the prediction on freedom to copy digital
products. Kelly, Dyson and Barlow were the big names speaking
out on this topic, but there were others. Here are a few:
- In an article she wrote in 1995 for Wired magazine, Esther
Dyson comments on intellectual property rights in the future
on the Internet: "In the new communities of the Net, the intrinsic
value of content generally will remain high, but most individual
items will have a short commercial half-life. Creators will
have to fight to attract attention and get paid. Creativity
will proliferate, but quality will be scarce and hard to recognize.
The problem for providers of intellectual property in the future
is this: Although under law they will be able to control the
pricing of their own products, they will operate in an increasingly
competitive marketplace where much of the intellectual property
is distributed free and suppliers explode in number."
- In a 1994 article he wrote for newspaper The Guardian of London,
Wired magazine editor Kevin Kelly says: "Let the copies breed.
Whatever it is that we are constructing by connecting everything
to everything, we know the big thing will copy effortlessly.
The I-way is a gigantic copy machine. It is a law of the digital
realm: anything digital will be copied, and anything copied
once will fill the universe. Further, every effort to restrict
copying is doomed to failure ... Controlling copies is futile.
This presents a problem for all holders of intellectual property
who adhere to the notion of copyright - such as Hollywood moguls
and authors. Copyright law as we know it will be dead in 50
years. A legal system that shifts the focus from the 'copy'
to the 'use' must take its place, letting copies proliferate,
and tracking only how and when an item is used. Copy this article,
please!"
- In a 1993 article for Internet World, Mike Godwin, chief counsel
for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, outlines issues in regard
to law and the Internet. Godwin writes: "The law of intellectual
property, which includes the law of copyright, will have to
adapt to a world in which advances in technology increasingly
undercut one's ability to enforce intellectual-property rights.
Only now has it become clear the extent to which copyright law
has depended on the 'bottleneck' created by the costs of printing
(and, later, of photocopying). As of today, it remains far easier
simply to buy the magazine containing a short story than it
is to photocopy that story, or to have a copy printed by a printshop
at your own expense. But ... the costs of reproducing all sorts
of intellectual property are falling rapidly ... It has been
argued that the current copyright regime could be replaced by
one based on usage fees, but that suggestion overlooks a couple
of important obstacles. First of all, once someone acquires
information from an online publisher, there's little disincentive
to spread that information around. (Why should you call up Nexis,
for example, when I did a similar search last week and can forward
my search results to you in e-mail?) The second problem is that
both the Internet and the proposed infrastructural schemes that
could replace it are highly decentralized. This decentralization
of the Net makes billing for and tracking use of intellectual
property very difficult ... I have long believed that, when
a law's requirements are so unrealistic that they are routinely
broken by otherwise law-abiding citizens, it's a sign that the
law needs to be changed."
- In 1994, John Perry Barlow wrote an article for Wired that
he described as, "a framework for rethinking patents and copyrights
in the Digital Age." In this section,"Information is a Life
Form," Barlow looks at how information changes and how difficult
it is to copyright this evolving form: "Our system of copyright
makes no accommodation whatever for expressions which don't
become fixed at some point, nor for cultural expressions which
lack a specific author or inventor. Jazz improvisations, stand-up
comedy routines, mime performances, developing monologues, and
unrecorded broadcast transmissions all lack the Constitutional
requirement of fixation as a 'writing.' Without being fixed
by a point of publication, the liquid works of the future will
all look more like these continuously adapting and changing
forms, and will therefore exist beyond the reach of copyright...
Soon most information will be generated collaboratively by the
cyber-tribal hunter-gatherers of cyberspace. Our arrogant dismissal
of the rights of 'primitives' will soon return to haunt us."
- In a 1994 article for The Toronto Sun, Scott Magnish talks
with Lance Hoffman about law on the Internet. Magnish writes:
"The concept of 'copyrighting' could be lost on the information
highway as the world moves closer to the free flow of information,
U.S. experts said ... 'Does copyright have a chance?' Hoffman
asked rhetorically. 'I'm increasingly leery of the pressure.
The economic pressures and even some of the social pressures
are such that it may not. Maybe the whole nature of intellectual
property has to be reexamined.'"
- In a 1995 report from a joint hearing of the House and Senate
Judiciary committees Courts and Intellectual Property subcommittees,
testimony from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) includes the following
statement: "We must update our copyright laws to protect the
intellectual property rights of creative works available online.
The future growth of computer networks, like the Internet, and
of digital, electronic communications require it. Otherwise,
owners of intellectual property will be unwilling to put their
material online. If there is no content worth reading online,
the growth of this medium will be stifled, and public accessibility
will be retarded."
Prediction on civic engagement
Civic involvement will increase substantially in the next 10
years, thanks to ever-growing use of the internet. That would
include membership in groups of all kinds, including professional,
social, sports, political and religious organizations - and
perhaps even bowling leagues.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the general
drift of the commentary skews in agreement with the prediction,
but there were plenty of people concerned that online involvement
would cause problems, including a reduction in important human-to-human
interaction. The predictions were grouped under the subtopic
of "virtual communities." Here are a few:
- In a 1993 article he wrote for Newsweek magazine, Howard Rheingold
says: "If we don't lose the freedom to speak as we choose, and
if the price of access doesn't restrict virtual communities
to the wealthy, we have the opportunity to build a grassroots
electronic democracy. But first we have to understand the nature
of the medium, its pitfalls as well as its benefits. Virtual
communities are not utopias ... There are dark sides, just as
every technology cast cultural shadows. Electronic bulletin-board
systems can bring people together, but the computer screen can
be a way of controlling relationships, keeping people at a distance.
Words on a screen help people communicate without the usual
barriers of prejudice based on appearance. That same distancing
of real-life identity and online persona can lead to cybercads
and charlatans who use the medium to swindle others. People
are cruel and rude to each other in real communities - and human
nature doesn't change because the community is mediated by a
computer screen. Computer-mediated communications are particularly
susceptible to deception ... Every new communication technology
- including the telephone - brings people together in new ways
and distances them in others. If we are to make good decisions
as a society about a powerful new communition medium, we must
not fail to look at the human element."
- In a 1995 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article about Carnegie Mellon
University's HomeNet Project - a three-year study of how 50
families were using the Internet - Steve Creedy quotes Robert
Kraut, a professor of social psychology and human-computer interaction
who was involved in the study: "Will the Internet expand people's
parochialism by leading them to a wider range of people with
the same interests, or will it encourage them to expand their
interests to new areas? There are hints of both, but the jury's
still out, according to Kraut. 'It makes it more efficient to
be parochial, but at the same time it gets you to come across
people and interests that you wouldn't have simply by being
in your small location with your previous identity,' he says.
'We're seeing both things happening, and we don't know which
is going to be dominant'"
- In a 1994 article for Time Magazine, Philip Elmer-Dewitt writes
about conflicting views about the development and uses of the
Internet: "Now, just when it seems almost ready for prime time,
the Net is being buffeted by forces that threaten to destroy
the very qualities that fueled its growth. It's being pulled
from all sides: by commercial interests eager to make money
on it, by veteran users who want to protect it, by pornographers
who want to exploit its freedoms, by parents and teachers who
want to make it a safe and useful place for kids ... The danger,
if this trend continues, is that people will withdraw within
their walled communities and never again venture into the Internet's
public spaces. It's a process similar to the one that created
the suburbs and replaced the great cities with shopping malls
and urban sprawl. The magic of the Net is that it thrusts people
together in a strange, new world, one in which they get to rub
virtual shoulders with characters they might otherwise never
meet. The challenge for the citizens of cyberspace - as the
battles to control the Internet are joined and waged - will
be to carve out safe, pleasant places to work, play and raise
their kids without losing touch with the freewheeling, untamable
soul that attracted them to the Net in the first place."
- In his 1995 book "Democracy and Technology," Richard Sclove
writes: "Contemporary technological reporting is rife with notions
of electronic communities in which people interact across regions
or entire continents. Could such 'virtual communities' eventually
replace geographically localized social relations? There are
reasons to suspect that, as the foundation for a democratic
society, virtual communities will remain seriously deficient.
If the prospect of a telecommunity replacing spatially localized
community ought to evoke skepticism or opposition, one can nevertheless
remain open to the possibility of democratically managing the
evolution of telecommunications systems in ways that instead
supplement more traditional forms of democratic community. Caution
is in order. However, the benefits of telecommunities can potentially
include combatting local parochialism; helping to establish
individual memberships in a diverse range of communities, associations,
and social movements; empowering isolated or marginalized groups;
and facilitating transcommunity and intersocietal understanding,
coordination, and accountability. Systems designed to support
such uses - especially without subverting local community -
are unlikely to emerge without concerted democratic struggle."
- Kimberly Rose made the following statement in a research presentation
at INET '95, the Internet Society's 1995 International Networking
Conference. She was a researcher with Apple Computer's Advanced
Technology Group. She also worked with a consortium of schools
in Southern California to develop collaborative dynamic curricula
utilizing a wide-area telecommunications network. Rose remarks:
"The potential the Web offers to build virtual communities is
tremendous. Large and complex problems which concern us are
now not only up to individuals to solve. By means of global
networking on the Internet special interest groups and clubs
are being formed. These groups can break down large issues into
smaller ones and collaborate to solve problems."
- Christopher Scheer wrote the following in an essay for The
Nation: "Take the future world of right-wing visionary George
Gilder - please. Listening to Gilder, one might get the impression
that the only thing keeping us from being happy is all these
other people: If we could only live 'virtually,' we'd be safe
from all the bad stuff out there and stimulated by all the good.
His future is sort of an intellectual's version of the survivalist
dream: Leave the now-irrelevant cities, hole up in your crime-free
Utah faux ranch with your wall-size interactive TV and call
up the world of high culture in Sensurround sound ... I'm the
goddamn wannabe Luddite who wonders what America will look like
if every rich person has a sprawling compound in some gloriously
beautiful - and ecologically fragile - state like Utah while
cities are abandoned to the poor. And yet, I'm actually living
the 'electronic cottage' dream of the Gilders, Gingriches and
Tofflers. I'm turning on, logging in and crashing out here in
my own little nest. I'm a 'prosumer' in the infoweb, absorbing
great gobs of data and disgorging a little of my own every day
... I'm human, a social animal. I'm not a god, I'm a hairless
chimp with a messianic complex and a mouse. I need human contact
and simple pleasures. I need to eat, poop and see people smile.
I need some sun, some rain and the pleasures of someday holding
the tiny paw of my own child. But instead of returning to the
basics, I, like many of us, am spending more and more of my
time with my face bathed in monitorglow, getting my fix of digital
junk. Won't someone please unwire me before it's too late?"
Prediction on embedded networks
As computing devices become embedded in everything from clothes
to appliances to cars to phones, these networked devices will
allow greater surveillance by governments and businesses. By
2014, there will be increasing numbers of arrests based on this
kind of surveillance by democratic governments as well as by
authoritarian regimes.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the commentary
skews in agreement with the prediction on the rise in tracking
by governments and business, and many activists were deeply
concerned. In the database, the keyword "surveillance"
conjures up dozens of hits. Among them are:
- In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, John Whalen does a bit
of surveillance at the American Society for Industrial Security's
annual convention, and quotes Roy Want, an inventor of 'active
badges' and a scientist at Xerox PARC. Whalen writes: "Roy Want
hails from England, the former empire that gave the world Jeremy
Bentham, philosopher of utilitarianism and author of Panopticon,
or 'The Inspection House.' Published in 1791, Bentham's treatise
described a polygonal prison workhouse that placed the penal/industrial
overseers in a central tower with glass-walled cells radiating
outward. Mirrors placed around the central tower allowed the
guards to peer into each cell while remaining invisible to the
prisoners ... More than 200 years later, Want, a computer engineer,
has essentially reinvented the Panopticon. More accurately,
his brainchild, known as the 'Active Badge,' would have made
Bentham proud ... Clipped to a shirt pocket or belt and powered
by a lithium battery, the black box emits an infrared signal
- just like a TV remote - every 15 seconds. Throughout the computer
lab at the PARC, infrared detectors are velcro-mounted to the
ceiling and networked into a Sun workstation ... While privacy
tribunes see active badges as an ominous new development in
the brave new workplace, Want and his colleagues see them as
'a double-edged sword,' with the potential for both benign and
malignant uses ... Want sees the tabs getting thinner and lighter.
Each of us would have dozens scattered around the office, in
the car, and at home. Detector 'cells will start appearing in
public places or the home,' he says. 'The device will tell you
where you are, wherever you are.' Of course, it might also tell
them where you are .... 'There are always these trade-offs between
what's useful and what could be done to us,' says Want from
the belly of the kinder, gentler Panopticon. 'The benefits to
be had are so great; we just have to be sure that the people
who are in control respect our privacy.'"
- In a 1994 article for Computer-Mediated Communication magazine,
Stephen Doheny-Farina, a professor of technical communication
at Clarkson University, writes: "Active badges should scare
the daylights out of anyone. When it comes to connectivity,
the employer must justify the surveillance. Everyone must assume
that only extraordinary conditions merit surveillance. The requisite
argument must not be, 'Why do you not want to wear the badge?'
The requisite argument must be 'Why do you want me to wear it?'
We must demand that the burden of proof is on the watcher, not
the watched."
- In his 1994 book "City of Bits," MIT computer scientist William
J. Mitchell writes: "Life in cyberspace generates electronic
trails as inevitably as soft ground retains footprints; that,
in itself, is not the worrisome thing. But where will digital
information about your contacts and activities reside? Who will
have access to it and under what circumstances? Will information
of different kinds be kept separately, or will there be ways
to assemble it electronically to create close and detailed pictures
of your life? These are the questions that we will face with
increasing urgency as we shift more and more of our daily activities
into the digital, electronic sphere. Contention about the limits
of privacy and surveillance is not new, but the terms and stakes
of the central questions are rapidly being redefined. Isolated
hermits can keep to themselves and don't have to keep up appearances,
but city dwellers have always had to accept that they will see
and be seen. In return for the benefits of urban life, they
tolerate some level of visibility and some possibility of surveillance
- some erosion of their privacy. Architecture, laws, and customs
maintain and represent whatever balance has been struck. As
we construct and inhabit cyberspace communities, we will have
to make and maintain similar bargains - though they will be
embodied in software structures and electronic access controls
rather than in architectural arrangements. And we had better
get them right; since electronic data collection and digital
collation techniques are so much more powerful than any that
could be deployed in the past, they provide the means to create
the ultimate Foucaultian dystopia."
- In his 1992 book "Privacy for Sale," Jeffrey Rothfeder writes:
"In time, high-tech snooping and databanking could make earlier-generation
activities seem naively old-fashioned, as innocent as child's
play. When that occurs, our failure to legislate controls over
surveillance equipment as they evolved - already a problem today
- could overwhelm us, as could our failure to prescribe adequate
civil and criminal penalties for abuses of individual privacy
committed by government agencies and U.S. corporations."
- Jim Warren made the following statement in reaction to the
fast-track passage of H.R. 4922 the "Communications Assistance
for Law Enforcement Act" (called by some the "digital telephony
bill" and labeled by its opponents as the "FBI's wire-tap bill")
which provided rules for the "interception of digital and other
communications," in 1994. The law directed that all telecommunications
companies make their networks tappable withing in the next four
years. The intent of the legislation, passed by the Senate and
signed by President Clinton, was to aid law enforcement, but
it included the phrase "and other lawful authorization," raising
privacy questions. "How many tens of thousands of ... [officials]
will have authorized access to this pervasive surveillance power?
How many thousands of political appointees control those agencies
- and are controlled by incumbent politicians? How many hick
sheriffs or local party bosses or nosy night staff are likely
to make unauthorized use of this Congressionally mandated snoop-n-peep
technology against boy - and girlfriends, family members, personal
enemies, business competitors, and - most dangerously - political
opponents?"
Prediction on formal education
Enabled by information technologies, the pace of learning in
the next decade will increasingly be set by student choices.
In ten years, most students will spend at least part of their
"school days" in virtual classes, grouped online with others
who share their interests, mastery, and skills.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the commentary
was enthusiastic about positive changes, as people projected
the internet to be a tremendous step forward in education. But
they also warned that the new tool had to be seen in a different
light, rather than just being swallowed up by the old system.
Nearly 200 of the predictions in the database fall under the
education/schools category. Here are a few:
- In a 1993 Wired magazine interview with Connie Guglielmo about
his election to the Colorado State Board of Education, Ed Lyell
discusses his vision of the future of computers and education.
Guglielmo writes: "In Ed Lyell's hopeful vision of the near
future, by age 18 everyone in this country is literate, semi-skilled
and as comfortable using computers and telecommunications technology
as they are using pencils. The main thing clouding that vision
is the current educational system. 'Children are born learning
machines,' says the Denver resident. '... But if you had a school
out there today to teach children to walk, one-third of the
population would not be walking ... It would be easier to get
the Pope to become a Buddhist than to get the schools to change.'
Lyell has plans for an educational system where students are
treated as individuals with differing interests and learning
skills. He hopes to build interactive learning devices that
students can peruse at their own pace and that present information
in a variety of ways. These computer-based learning systems
are part of a concept he calls 'Just-in-Time Learning.' 'It's
analogous to just-in-time manufacturing, which holds that efficiency
comes when things happen just at the right time, when you have
all the proper resources in place,' says Lyell. 'In the case
of education, it means a student is able to log onto a computer
to learn about whatever he or she is interested in learning
about at that particular point in time.' ... 'I think we should
have learning centers, neighborhood electronic cottages,' Lyell
says.
- Kimberly Rose made the following statement in a research presentation
at INET '95, the Internet Society's 1995 International Networking
Conference. Rose worked with a consortium of schools in Southern
California to develop collaborative dynamic curricula using
a wide-area telecommunications network: "We must be careful
not to look to this technology with hopes that it will be the
next band aid for education. Installing computers, software,
networking hardware, telephone lines and cabling in our schools
will not change the way our children think unless we use these
tools in new ways which take advantage of the possibilities
the new tools have to offer. It is more likely that these new
technologies will be used in ways which just mimic the old media
and therefore not gain us any new insights into creating better
learning environments."
- In a 1993 article he wrote for Wired magazine, Seymour Papert
remarks: "In the past, education adapted the mind to a very
restricted set of available media; in the future, it will adapt
media to serve the needs and tastes of each individual mind
… Demoting reading from its privileged position in the school
curriculum is only one of many consequences of Knowledge Machines
... What follows from imagining a Knowledge Machine is a certainty
that school will either change very radically or simply collapse.
It is predictable that the education establishment cannot see
farther than using new technologies to do what it has always
done in the past, teach the same curriculum ... The possibility
of freely exploring worlds of knowledge calls into question
the very idea of an administered curriculum."
- In a 1991 article for The Whole Earth Review, a quarterly
magazine of access to tools and ideas, Roger Karraker discusses
the Internet, quoting George Gilder. Karraker writes: "What
would a real Network Nation be like? Conservative theorist/author
George Gilder ... foresees a renaissance in education ... 'The
telecomputer could revitalize public education by bringing the
best teachers in the country to classrooms everywhere,' Gilder
says. 'More important, the telecomputer could encourage competition
because it could make home schooling both feasible and attractive.
To learn social skills, neighborhood children could gather in
micro-schools run by parents, churches or other local institutions.
The competition of home schooling would either destroy the public
school system or force it to become competitive with rival systems.'"
- Craig Lyndes was a teacher from Champlain Valley Union High
School in Vermont who was a representative of his school in
its membership in the National School Network Testbed (NSNT),
funded by the National Science Foundation to encourage the effective
promulgation of the Internet in education. This statement was
quoted in a research presentation made by Beverly Hunter, a
NSNT official, at INET '95, the Internet Society's 1995 International
Networking Conference. Lyndes reports: "Eventually we want to
allow the students to access all of the school's resources from
home. This is part of our long-range goal to blow the walls
off the school, bring the world into the school, and put the
school out in the world."
- In a 1993 article for The Christian Science Monitor, Romolo
Gondolfo interviews Perelman, senior researcher at the Discovery
Institute in Washington, D.C. Gondolofo quotes Perelman saying:
"All bureaucracies, as we know, are rooted in the idea of controlling
people's access to knowledge by concentrating it at the top
and distributing it very parimoniously to those at lower levels.
But this is precisely what is becoming more and more difficult
to do in this new Age of Knowledge which we are right now entering
... A fundamental implication of this revolution is that the
creation and transmission of knowledge will no longer move vertically,
from the top down. It will move horizontally, among many people,
at a tremendous speed. This will undermine the foundation of
every bureaucracy, including schools … I propose to abolish
all public grants for schools and colleges and instead give
the money directly to families in the form of 'micro-vouchers'
to be spent on anything that nurtures the spirit and teaches
new skills."
- In his 1995 book "Silicon Snake Oil," writer Clifford Stoll
shares his take on the Internet's future implications for education:
"All of us want children to experience warmth, human interaction,
the thrill of discovery, and solid grounding in essentials:
reading, getting along with others, training in civic values.
Only a teacher, live in the classroom, can bring about this
inspiration. This can't happen over a speaker, a television
or a computer screen. Yet everywhere I hear parents and principals
clamoring for interactive computer instruction. What is wrong
with this picture? ... At the same time that school librarians,
art instructors, and music teachers are being fired, we're spending
thousands on computers. What's wrong with this picture? ...
'I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize
our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant
largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks.' - Thomas Edison,
1922. In the past, schools tried instructional filmstrips, movies
and television; some are still in use, but think of your own
experience: Name three multimedia programs that actually inspired
you. Now name three teachers that made a difference in your
life."
Prediction on democratic processes
By 2014, network security concerns will be solved and more than
half of American votes will be cast online, resulting in increased
voter turnout.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the general
drift of the commentary splits in regard to this prediction
when considering the concept of network security. Many people
of the 1990s said security is not possible; some believed that
a secure system would eventually be built; some said that a
foolproof, secure system would ensure so much privacy that it
would put the world’s societies at the mercy of criminals and
terrorists, shielding them from law enforcement; and some said
that perfect encryption would make it impossible for governments
to collect taxes. Here is a sample:
- In an interview for InfoWorld in 1994, Jayne Levin, editor
of The Internet Letter, asks Daniel C. Lynch, "How can companies
best protect their networks from intruders?" Lynch replies:
"Ah, yes. Security. Networking. Let's see: secrecy and sharing.
All together. Seems kinda contradictory. Network security will
remain the hardest nut to crack (bad pun) for many years to
come. Why? Because security itself is a perpetual problem. As
long as we have humans around, anyway. The Internet was created
without much security included. We relied on the security of
the individual operating systems residing on the hosts that
were connected to the Internet. Then along came PCs and Macs.
No concept of security was built into them… Many vendors and
researchers are working on ways to extend the firewall concept
to full-function Internetworking. They will not be done tomorrow."
- In their 1994 book "Firewalls and Internet Security," Steven
Bellovin and William Cheswick write: "It might seem that we
are unduly pessimistic about the state of computer security.
This is half-true: we are pessimistic, but not, we think, unduly
so. Nothing in the recent history of either network security
or software engineering gives us any reason to believe otherwise.
Nor are we alone in feeling this way."
- In a 1994 article about digital democracy for Wired magazine,
Evan I. Schwartz writes: "The very thought of living in an electronic
democracy raises fundamental issues ... Won't it be harder than
ever for Congress and the President to stand up for what's right,
rather than what's popular? Can voter privacy be maintained,
or will marketers get hold of everyone's voting records? Will
everyone have access to the latest technology? Will the people
really be getting their say, or will the whole process by controlled
by moguls like Malone? And perhaps most important, what would
happen if votes somehow became binding, rather than just advisory?"
- In a 1995 essay for Newsweek magazine, Jonathan Alter quotes
Neil Postman. Alter writes: "Although the technology already
exists for a full-scale teledemocracy, no one has yet figured
out a way to guarantee the integrity of the balloting. In fact,
even computerized voting at polling places remains surprisingly
suspect. 'The opportunities for rigging elections [are] child's
play for vendors and knowledgeable election officials,' writes
Peter G. Neumann in 'Computer-Related Risks.' (Neumann runs
the Internet newsgroup The Risks Forum.) Short-term technical
problems - like the disastous pileup last November in Canada
when the Liberal Party tried a teleconvention with delegates
voting from home by phone - can be fixed. But the larger problem
of essentially turning over vote-counting to unaccountable computer
experts will be unresolved for years. At least when Boss Tweed
stole votes, everyone knew it. Computer vote fraud can be extraodinarily
difficult to trace."
- In his 1994 book "City of Bits," MIT computer scientist William
J. Mitchell writes: "As telecommunications networks have developed,
there has been growing flirtation with the idea of replacing
old-fashioned voting booths and ballot boxes with electronic
polling. In a cyberspace election, you might find the policies
of candidates posted online, you might use your personal computer
to go to a virtual polling place to cast your vote, and the
votes might be tallied automatically in real time ... There
are, of course, potential problems with electronic stuffing
of ballot boxes, but these can be handled through password control
of access to the virtual ballot box or (better) through use
of encryption technology to verify a voter's identity ... Electronic
feedback can even be swift enough, potentially, to support real-time
(or at least very fast) direct democracy on a large scale. Populist
demagogues like Ross Perot have proffered visions of sitting
in front of your two-way television, watching debates, and bypassing
the politicians by immediately, electronically recording your
response. The network presents the packaged alternatives. Vote
with your remote! "
- In his 1995 book "Silicon Snake Oil," writer Clifford Stoll
shares his take on the Internet's future implications: "The
myth holds that our networks are the ultimate in democracy -
all voices can be heard. Bytes have no race, gender, age, or
religion. What effects will we see when the government comes
online? Computer access will let us send messages to government
officials, and get quick responses from them. We'll know what's
happening in the back rooms of our legislatures. We could read
committees' reports the same day they're written and get fast
responses to our queries. The myth grows: Elections will change,
too. Politicians will be available through electronic forums,
with less emphasis on expensive television ads. They'll upload
position papers to the net, and reply to e-mail from their constituents.
Eventually, we'll see electronic voting - a way to further democratic
participation, with polls giving near-instant feedback for representatives.
The reality? Anyone can post messages to the Net. Practically
everyone does. The resulting cacaphony drowns out serious discussion.
Online debates of tough issues are often polarized by messages
taking extreme positions. It's a great medium for trivia and
hobbies, but not the place for reasoned, reflective judgment."
- In an interview that aired on PBS-TV in 1995, Internet pioneer
Stewart Brand said: "If total public cryptography and lots of
financial transactions come to the Net, will you pay taxes in
the future? You won't. This is one terrifying fantasy from the
government standpoint. It may not be a fantasy, because if lots
of transactions go onto the Net and they're completely encrypted
in a way that they can't be tracked, a whole lot of financial
activity basically goes black, goes underground. And then you
can't tax transactions, you can't track transactions. All you've
got left to tax basically is possessions at that point and so
you may see ... property taxes going up and sales taxes disappearing."
Prediction on families
By 2014, as telework and home-schooling expand, the boundaries
between work and leisure will diminish significantly. This will
sharply alter everyday family dynamics.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the general
drift of the commentary skewed in agreement with the prediction.
While rosy statements were made at the time about the abundant
choices to be made by families in a world of telecommuting and
home schooling, there were also notes of caution sounded about
the impact of networked life in the home. Here are a few:
- In a 1995 article for The Guardian in London, Christopher
Reed quotes Wired magazine editor/publisher Louis Rossetto.
Reed writes: "What Wired is doing, in the words of co-founder
and editor/publisher Louis Rossetto, is launching the 'digital
revolution,' the 'creation and implementation of new electronic
technology, what it means to our lives, and how it will change
everything: business, politics, culture, education, art and
personal relationships.' The computers and the international
networks, Rossetto believes, are media with such powerful messages
that in a generation, the world will be a different place. Digitally
doomed are mammoth corporations, political parties, the conventional
school, the commute to the workplace, orthodox finances including
national budgets, and popular entertainment … Even the family
will change. 'What happens when families come back together
because work is done at home?' asks Rossetto. 'What neuroses
will that expose?'"
- In this 1995 online essay, Justin Hall makes the statement:
"For the jobs of tomorrow, in the service sector, the home is
the workplace. They already have a catchphrase for it - telecommuting
... You can be near your kids, your pets, your garden, in the
comfort of your own home, work on your computer and video teleconference
to your meetings. Each office I have worked in has sucked up
hours of my day. Dealing with other people's crises, lounging
by the coffee machine, pointless meetings, getting from one
place to the other. Home working, the time you waste is your
own, around your family and friends. Set your own schedule,
in your own environment, no commuting. If we abandon the concept
of the inner-city office workplace, we can begin to unpave this
country ... people will be rooted in their local communities
while maintaining global presence. Home cooking and home improvement;
the family structure will be bolstered by the presence of parents,
in communities of energized folk."
- In his 1995 book "Silicon Snake Oil," writer Clifford Stoll
shares his take on the Internet's future implications: "Networks
hold out the promise of telecommuting. One day, many of us will
be able to work at home, any hour of the day or night. We'll
save gas, have closer family ties, and have a happier workplace.
Oh? I doubt our offices will be replaced by minions working
from home. The lack of meetings and personal interaction isolates
workers and reduces loyalty. Nor is a house necessarily an efficient
place to work, what with the constant interruptions and lack
of office fixtures. Perhaps it'll work for jobs where one never
has to meet anyone else, like data entry or telephone sales.
What a way to turn a home into a prison."
- The 1995 book "The Information Revolution," edited by Donald
Altschiller, carries a reprint of the Fall 1994, New Perspectives
Quarterly article "Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age," by social
critics Esther Dyson, George Gilder, Jay Keyworth and Alvin
Toffler. They write: "No one knows what the Third Wave communities
of the future will look like, or where demassification will
ultimately lead. It is clear, however, that cyberspace will
play an important role in knitting together the diverse communities
of tomorrow, facilitating the creation of electronic neighborhoods
bound together not by geography but by shared interests. Socially,
putting advanced computing in the hands of entire populations
will alleviate pressure on highways, reduce air pollution, allow
people to live further away from crowded or dangerous urban
areas, and expand family time."
Prediction on the rise of extreme communities
Groups of zealots in politics, in religion, and in groups advocating
violence will solidify, and their numbers will increase by 2014
as tight personal networks flourish online.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the commentary
skews in agreement with the prediction. Of course, if the internet
can build up positive social networks, there is no reason to
assume it could do anything but the identical thing for negative
social networks. Here are a few selections:
- In a 1993 article for Wired magazine, futurist Peter Schwartz,
a co-founder of the Global Business Network, discusses the high-tech
future that will develop out of a knowledge-based world with
futurist Alvin Toffler, the co-author (with his wife Heidi Toffler)
of "Future Shock," "The Third Wave" and "War and Anti-War."
Schwartz quotes Toffler saying: "The world system is splitting
into three parts - three different layers or tiers - or more
accurately three different civilizations. Of course, you'll
continue to have agrarian countries and you'll continue to have
the mass-manufacturing cheap-labor suppliers, at least for a
transitional period. But we are ... rapidly developing a chain
of info-intensive countries whose economics depend not on the
hoe or the assembly-line but on brainpower ... The emerging
third-wave civilization is going to collide head-on with the
old first and second civilizations. One of the things we ought
to learn from history is that when waves of change collide they
create countercurrents. When the first and the second wave collided
we had civil wars, upheavals, political revolutions, forced
migrations. The master conflict of the 21st century will not
be between cultures but between the three supercivilizations
- between agrarianism and industrialism and post-industrialism."
- In a 1995 article in Government Technology, Blake Harris writes:
"The dark side of cyberspace harbors hackers pirating software
and exchanging hacking techniques, drug smugglers using e-mail,
political extremists advocating racism, hate and violence, predators
seeking to seduce children, pornographers with modems, and maybe
even terrorist networks plotting atrocities - in fact, almost
every form of evil that already exists in our society. It is
a little terrifying, at times, to think that virtually anyone,
armed simply with a computer, modem and telephone line, can,
at least in theory, reach a worldwide audience with whatever
communication he or she wishes. This fact, coupled with the
anarchic freedom of the Internet, has brought to a head a number
of fundamental issues that may have significant ramifications
on how the Information Age unfolds: surveillance and public
safety vs. privacy through encryption and anonymity, censorship
vs. free expression, more control vs. a decentralized anarchy
of information."
-In his 1994 book "City of Bits," MIT computer scientist William
J. Mitchell writes: "Network pimps will offer ways to do something
sordid (but safe) with lubriciously programmed telehookers.
(This is an obvious extrapolation of the telephone's transformation
of the whorehouse into the call-girl operation.) Telemolesters
will lurk. Telethugs will reach out and punch someone."
- In a 1995 article for Computerworld, Gary Anthes writes about
the statements made by attendees at a recent conference on information
warfare, quoting Stephen Kent of Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.
Anthes writes: "Problems and threats: 'It's clear that we have
lots of vulnerable systems that the country depends on. Terrorist
organizations are especially worrisome. They are eager for the
kind of notoriety that would attend their knocking out the telephone
system or air traffic control system.' - Stephen Kent, chief
scientist for security technology at Bolt Beranek and Newman
Inc., Cambridge, Mass."
-The 1994 book "The Information Revolution," edited by Donald
Altschiller, carries a reprint of the Jan. 23, 1995, U.S. News
& World Report article "Policing Cyberspace" by Vince Sussman.
Sussman explores First Amendment rights in cyberspace. The article
includes an interview with FBI Special Agent William Tafoya.
Sussman quotes Tafoya, writing: "Crime involving high technology
is going to be off the boards,' predicts FBI Special Agent William
Tafoya, the man who created the bureau's home page on the Internet,
the worldwide computer network. 'It won't be long before the
bad guys outstrip our ability to keep up with them. '"
- In his 1994 book "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines,
Social Systems and the Economic World," Kevin Kelly, editor
of Wired magazine, quotes Tim May in a discussion of the future
impact of encryption and anonymous remailers: "I confess my
misgivings about the potential market for anonymity to Tim:
'Seems like the perfect thing for ransom notes, extortion threats,
bribes, blackmail, insider trading and terrorism.' 'Well,' Tim
answers. 'what about selling information that isn't viewed as
legal, say about pot growing, do-it-yourself abortion, cryonics,
or even peddling alternative medical information without a license?
What about the anonymity wanted for whistleblowers, confessionals
and dating personals?"
- The 1995 book "The Information Revolution," edited by Donald
Altschiller, carries a reprint of the Jan. 23, 1995, U.S. News
& World Report article "Policing Cyberspace" by Vince Sussman.
Sussman explores First Amendment rights in cyberspace. In the
article, he interviews Carlton Fitzpatrick, branch chief of
FLETC's Financial Fraud Institute. Sussman writes: "'Cyberspace
is like a neighborhood without a police department,' says FLETC's
[Carlton] Fitzpatrick. One of the most pressing dangers, says
Fitzpatrick, is that people bound by hate and racism are no
longer separated by time and distance. They can share their
frustrations at nightly computerized meetings. 'What some people
call hate crimes are going to increase, and the networks are
going to feed them,' predicts Fitzpatrick, [branch chief of
FLETC's Financial Fraud Institute]. 'I believe in the First
Amendment. But sometimes it can be a noose society hangs itself
with."
- In a 1995 article in New Scientist, Kurt Kleiner reports on
what Mike Godwin and David Banisar are saying about fears that
the government may try to control or acquire the ability to
tap into secure communications on the Internet. Kleiner writes:
"Users of the Internet are afraid that there will be some sort
of clampdown on them because of the wave of paranoia that has
swept the country after the Oklahoma City bombing. Newspapers
and TV shows have carried stories about the sort of information
that is available over the Internet. For instance, they point
out that 'The Terrorist's Handbook' is easy to find, complete
with detailed information on how to mix and detonate more than
a dozen kinds of explosives, including the one used in the Oklahoma
City bombing. It also became clear after the bombing that members
of militia groups, such as the one the bomber belonged to, communicate
via the Internet. Godwin points out that so far no one in a
government position has called for censorship of the Internet.
And David Banisar, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center,
thinks such censorship is unlikely. 'What can they do? Say no
political organizing over the Internet? That's clearly unconstitutional.'"
- In May 1995, Wired magazine ran an article that was excerpted
from a transcript of a speech Bruce Sterling delivered at the
High Technology Crime Investigation Association conference in
November 1994. Sterling says: "Countries that have offshore
money laundries are gonna have offshore data laundries. Countries
that now have lousy oppressive governments and smart, determined
terrorist revolutionaries are gonna have lousy oppressive governments
and smart determined terrorist revolutionaries with computers.
Not too long after that, they're going to have tyrannical revolutionary
governments run by zealots with computers; then we're likely
to see just how close to Big Brother a government can really
get. Dealing with these people is going to be a big problem
for us."
Prediction on politics
By 2014, most people will use the internet in a way that filters
out information that challenges their viewpoints on political
and social issues. This will further polarize political discourse
and make it difficult or impossible to develop meaningful consensus
on public problems.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), some
commentary is in agreement with this prediction. There were
also some people who projected that the internet could bring
about a new pluralism. Here are some examples from both sides:
- For a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Jay Kinney, publisher
and editor of Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions,
writes: "One gets the sense that, given half a chance, the electorate
would love to ditch the old left/right horseshoe match and take
on some new paradigms altogether ... Some techno-optimists,
entranced with the rapid expansion of cyberspace, are convinced
that the rough contours of the future can be spotted in the
shadowy forms dancing across their computer screens. The pounding
drums of cypherpunks, Usenet orators, civil-liberties activists,
and venture capitalists, all undulating together in the flickering
RGB glow, seem to whisper alluring promises of power, privacy,
and pluralism in the politics to come … When all is said and
done, is there a new politics emerging in the Net/cyberspace/digital
culture? Short answer: Yes, if by 'new politics' one means an
increased visibility for certain strains of ideology, like libertarianism,
that have not generally made it through the mass media's bozo-filters.
Libertarianism - with its zealous advocacy of laissez-faire
capitalism, deregulation, and privatization - is a ready-made
'killer app' for high-tech start-ups, would-be millionaires,
and the rest of the 'don't tread on me' cybercrew. Mix this
in with the current impatience toward half-failed liberal solutions
and mammoth government and we may see some unusually radical
proposals enacted in Washington."
- A paper titled "Computer-Mediated Communication and the American
Collectivity: The Dimensions of Community Within Cyberspace,"
by Jan Fernback and Brad Thompson, was presented at the annual
convention of the International Communication Association, Albuquerque,
N.M., May 1995. It was reprinted in full form on Howard Rheingold's
Web site. This is an excerpt: "CMC [Computer-Mediated Communication]
does not, at this point, hold the promise of enhancing democracy
because it promotes communities of interest that are just as
narrowly defined as current public factions defined by identity
(whether it be racial, sexual, or religious). Public discourse
ends when identities become the last, unyielding basis for argumentation
that strives ideally to achieve consensus based on a common
good."
-In a 1994 article for Wilson Quarterly, Edward Tenner writes:
"Yes, networks can help people strengthen neighborhoods and
communities. But they also encourage people to find ways out.
Unhappy with your schools? Join the parents who have turned
to home schooling. Teaching materials and mutual support are
already available online, and home educators have been using
electronic mail effectively to organize and lobby for their
rights. Their children may learn all they need to, but the economist
Albert O. Hirschman has pointed out that when the most quality-conscious
users are free to leave a troubled system, whether railroads
or schools, the system suffers further by losing its most vocal
critics. Any future information network will help unhappy people
secede, at least mentally, from institutions they do not like,
much as the interstate highway system allowed the affluent to
flee the cities for the suburbs and exurbs. Prescribing mobility,
whether automotive or electronic, as an antidote to society's
fragmentation is like recommending champagne as a hangover remedy."
- In a 1995 article in Le Monde Diplomatique, Paul Virilio,
the emblematic French theorist of technology and author of "Pure
War, Speed and Politics," and "War and Cinema: the Logistics
of Perception," writes: "The dictatorship of speed at the limit
will increasingly clash with representative democracy. When
some essayists address us in terms of 'cyber-democracy,' of
virtual democracy; when others state that 'opinion democracy'
is going to replace 'political parties democracy,' one cannot
fail to see anything but this loss of orientation in matters
political, of which the March 1994 'media-coup' by Mr. Silvio
Berlusconi was an Italian-style prefiguration. The advent of
the age of viewer-counts and opinion polls reigning supreme
will necessarily be advanced by this type of technology."
- In a 1995 article for Governing, Christopher Conte quotes
Andrew Blau of the Benton Foundation. Conte writes: "The ease
and sheer speed of new communications technologies give the
information superhighway its appeal. But those same qualities
provoke fears among people who see it as a threat to representative
democracy. 'Real democracy is slow and deliberative,' notes
Andrew Blau, director of the communications policy project for
the Benton Foundation, a Washington, D.C., group that promotes
the use of the information superhighway. 'It's so easy to imagine
a scenario in which technology is used to get instant judgments
from people. If it is used that way, we haven't seen anything
yet when it comes to high-tech lynchings.'"
- In his 1995 book "The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy
in the Information Age," Lawrence Grossman, former president
of NBC News and PBS, writes: "'Boiler room' organizations, hired
by special interests, will seek to manufacture and mobilize
'grassroots' opinion and stimulate the outpouring of selected
messages and votes - to make sure that particular viewpoints
are heard. They do that now. In the next century, it will become
a mainstream business. Computerized political advertising, promotion,
and marketing campaigns, targeted with as much intensity as
legislators, regulators, and public officials are lobbied today,
because public opinion - the fourth branch of government - will
play an even more pivotal role in major government decisions."
- In the July 1994 issue of The Network Observer online newsletter,
Barbara Welling Hall writes about networking, democracy and
computers: "Inequitable access to these technologies at present
and in the foreseeable future profoundly diminishes the diversity
of opinions that are vetted electronically. Electronic communities
may provide genuine benefits to isolated individuals, but if
these communities are to be presented as providing global rather
than partial access to political discourse, this promise may
be squandered. Finally, although freedom of information may
hamper some dangerous actions, more information alone is not
a substitute for the development of critical or compassionate
faculties. Data may reveal the existence of injustice, but data
alone rarely generate the political will either to make difficult
trade-offs or to discover creative solutions to perennial problems."
Prediction on health system change
In 10 years, the increasing use of online medical resources
will yield substantial improvement in many of the pervasive
problems now facing healthcare-including rising healthcare costs,
poor customer service, the high prevalence of medical mistakes,
malpractice concerns, and lack of access to medical care for
many Americans.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the general
drift of the commentary skews in agreement with the prediction.
The internet was seen as a way to streamline the connection
between consumers and health-care providers, and the availability
of health-education data was seen as a key to improving millions
of lives in Third World nations. Here are some examples:
- In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, Joe Flower explains
the types of changes that could come in health care through
the use of networked computing. Flower writes: "The coming American
health care system has everything to do with smart cards and
dumb terminals, big bandwidth and microprobes, genetic markers
and info-markets. And it doesn't look like anything you've read
in the paper ... Over the next decade, we will see health care
become less doctor-centered, and more community- and family-centered.
Medicine itself will become less of an art and more fact-based.
Yet at the same time it will come to feel more humane … Eventually
all health records, from insurance information to X-rays and
MRI scans will go digital - and eventually you will carry all
that information with you on a card … The very discoveries and
inventions that will continue to transform medical practice
will push it to be less about hardware, less about vast and
powerful machines watched over by highly trained acolytes, and
more about shared information … They carry the possibility of
providing major assistance in revolutionizing health care, making
it both cheaper and better, spreading it wider, involving people
in making decisions about their own lives, helping America (and
eventually the world) build truly healthier communities."
- The 1995 book "The Information Revolution," edited by Donald
Altschiller, carries a reprint of the 1993 report of the Information
Infrastructure Task Force. In "The National Information Infrastructure:
Agenda for Action," members of the commission report: "Experts
estimate that telecommunications applications could reduce health
care costs by $36 to $100 billion each year while improving
quality and increasing access. Below are some of the existing
and potential applications. - Telemedicine: By using telemedicine,
doctors and other care givers can consult with specialists thousands
of miles away; continually upgrade their education and skills;
and share medical records and x-rays ... - Unified Electronic
Claims: More than 4 billion health care claims are submitted
annually from health care providers to reimbursement organizations
such as insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid, and HMOs -
The administrative costs of the U.S. health care systems could
be dramatically reduced by moving towards standardized electronic
submission and processing of claims. - Personal Health Information
Systems: The United States can use computers and networks to
promote self-care and prevention by making health care information
available 24 hours a day in a form that aids decision making.
- Michael McDonald, chairman of the Communications and computer
Applications in Public Health (CCAPH) estimates that even if
personal health information systems were used only 25 to 35
percent of the time, $40 to $60 billion could be saved. - Computer-Based
Patient Records: Computer-Based Patient Records are critical
to improving the quality and reducing the cost of health care."
- A research group representing The Global Health Network, an
international group with the hope of using the Internet to establish
a better world of medicine and prevention, made the following
statement in a research presentation at INET '95, the Internet
Society's 1995 International Networking Conference. The group
reports: "We should be able to monitor and forecast diseases
as well as we monitor the weather if we take on new technologies.
Having an Internet backbone to national and global-disease monitoring
can yield accurate and timely information concerning disease
conditions … At the time of a disaster one of the - if not the
most critical - needs is that of communication."
Prediction on the personal entertainment and media environment
By 2014, all media, including audio, video, print, and voice,
will stream in and out of the home or office via the internet.
Computers that coordinate and control video games, audio, and
video will become the centerpiece of the living room and will
link to networked devices around the household, replacing the
television's central place in the home.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the general
drift of the commentary skews in agreement with this prediction.
At the time, whether they called it a television, a computer
or a teleputer, most experts were saying that our homes would
be tied to a network of information flowing inward and outward.
Here are some examples:
- In a 1994 article for Wilson Quarterly, Douglas Gomery writes:
"The basic device serving consumers at home will almost certainly
be some sort of hybrid telecomputer that marries a computer
processor and a television screen. It will display wide-screen
images, easily accommodating all of Hollywood's CinemaScope-like
images without lopping off the sides ... Telecomputers of the
sort described here will cost thousands of dollars each. When
they finally become widely available, for example, digital high-definition
television (HDTV) sets are likely to cost in the neighborhood
of $5,000. To wire the nation with fiber-optic cable, add at
least $1,000 per household, or a cool $100 billion for the whole
country. That is not to mention the cost of wiring businesses,
government of and nonprofit institutions. Sums of this size
serve as reminders that, much as we like to think of the infohighway
as the centerpiece of a 'postindustrial' era, building it will
be a very old-fashioned capital-intensive undertaking. It will
take a long time, and it will be very expensive."
- In a 1995 article for Time, reporter Barrett Seaman writes
about future technologies. He quotes Mark Weiser. He writes:
"At Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in California, where the
PC, on-screen icons and the laser printer originated, Mark Weiser,
manager of the computer science laboratory, envisions a world
in which flat-panel screens bearing a multitude of images will
be household regulars. They will range from tiny ones, costing
perhaps $5 each and plastered everywhere, to wall-size ones
for viewing video. The smaller ones, says Weiser, are 'where
you'll plan your grocery list or do your homework. They'll be
the equivalent of Post-it notes on the refrigerator or the crumpled-up
notepaper in your pocket.' In Weiser's world, people will wake
up to a tiny bedside screen that gives the time and the weather
forecast and even displays news headlines or sports scores.
Pocket-size screens would also serve as remote controls for
larger screens in the bedroom or living room, where family members
will use them variously to watch TV, read the newspaper (which
will be customized for each member's personal interests) or
draw up the family grocery list."
- In his 1995 book "The Road Ahead," Microsoft CEO Bill Gates
writes: "Your television set will not look like a computer and
won't have a keyboard, but the additional electronics inside
or attached will make it architecturally a computer like a PC.
Television sets will connect to the highway via a set-top box
similar to ones supplied today by most cable TV companies. But
these new set-top boxes will include a very powerful general-purpose
computer. The box may be located inside a television, behind
a television, on top of a television, on a basement wall, or
even outside the house. Both the PC and the set-top box will
connect to the information highway and conduct a 'dialogue'
with the switches and servers of the network, retrieving information
and programming and relaying the subscriber's choices."
- In a 1994 article he wrote for National Review, George Gilder,
a fellow of the Discovery Institute in Seattle and author of
"Life After Television," expounds on his views of future communications.
He writes: "Within the next 10 years, this explosive technological
advance in both networks and processors virtually guarantees
that the personal-computer model of distributed intelligence
and control will unseat the emperors of the mass media and blow
away the television model of centralization. The teleputer -
a revolutionary PC of the next decade - will give every household
hacker the productive potential of a factory czar of the industrial
era and the communications power of a broadcast tycoon of the
television age. Broadcasting hierarchies will give way to computer
heterarchies - peer networks in which the terminals are essentially
equal in power and there is no center at all."
Prediction on creativity
Pervasive high-speed information networks will usher in an age
of creativity in which people use the internet to collaborate
with others and take advantage of digital libraries to make
more music, art, and literature. A large body of independently-produced
creative works will be freely circulated online and will command
widespread attention from the public.
In the data in the Predictions Database (1990-95), the commentary
followed in agreement with this prediction. At the time the
digital libraries were mostly in the early planning stages,
but the internet was born from the desire for human collaboration,
so it was natural to assume that creative people would be able
to mimic the successes found in collaborations on the internet
by researchers in the network community. Here are some examples:
- In an excerpt from his 1994 book "Life After Television,"
George Gilder addresses the future: "The new law of networks
exalts the smallest coherent system: the individual human mind
and spirit. A healthy culture reflects not the psychology of
crowds but the creativity and inspiration of millions of individuals
reaching for high goals. In place of the broadcast pyramid,
a peer network will emerge in which all the terminals will be
smart."
- In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, Daniel Pinchbeck, a
New York-based writer and the editor of Open City, a literary
and art journal, writes: "Eventually, computers and the Internet
may force artists out of the increasingly esoteric discourse
of the art world. A broader audience may demand that they reintegrate
their work with larger issues related to science, technology,
and humanism. 'I would like to see a return to that classical
breadth of inquiry that artists were able to make in the Renaissance,'
says Michael Joaquin Grey. Computers may also force radical
artists to return to a notion of craft. In the contemporary
art world, painstaking studio process often seems to matter
less than an up-to-the-minute ironic pose. Artists of the past
had to grapple with techniques ranging from draftsmanship to
fresco painting if they wanted to achieve greatness. Their creative
inheritors may have to master digital tools if they hope to
reach beyond the restrictive walls of galleries and museums."
- In his 1995 book "The Road Ahead," Microsoft CEO Bill Gates
writes: "Over time we will start to create new forms and formats
that will go significantly beyond what we know now. The exponential
expansion of computing power will keep changing the rules and
opening new possibilities that will seem as remote and farfetched
then as some of the things I've speculated on here might seem
today. Talent and creativity have always shaped advances in
unpredictable ways ... The information highway will open undreamed-of
artistic and scientific opportunities to a new generation of
geniuses."
- In a 1991 article for The New York Times, John Markoff interviews
Internet pioneer Robert Kahn as he explains the nation's planned
"national data highway." Markoff writes: "This network of fiber-optic
cables, which would completed replace existing copper lines,
is viewed by many scientists and executives as both a vital
research tool and an essential part of the country's 'information
infrastructure' for the next century ... '[The Internet] will
unleash a tremendous amount of creativity and innovation which
will lead to capabilities we can't even imagine today,' said
Robert Kahn, a scientist at the Corporation for National Research
Initiatives, a Reston, Va., research organization that is coordinating
consortiums of corporations, research laboratories and universities
developing extremely fast computer networks."
- In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, media critic Jon Katz
writes: "The explosion of energy coming from digital designers,
musicians, filmmakers, photographers, and even advertisers is
altering our basic notions of creativity. A new dream of the
future is being born. Of course, in a half-century or so, these
same digital revolutionaries will form the nostalgic material
of somebody else's 'history.' Imagine the writer of that book
- or CD-ROM or digital bedside laptop tablet - longing for the
time when clunky computers sprouted wires, modems hissed, and
chips held finite memory. Think how much wonder our time might
hold."
Prediction about how people go online
By 2014, 90% of all Americans will go online from home via high-speed
networks that are dramatically faster than today's high-speed
networks.
In the Predictions Database (1990-95), the commentary was
firmly behind the development of high-speed networks, and the
vision was that these would come sooner rather than later. Most
of this came after the introduction of the World Wide Web, with
its ability to display images; the prospect of being able to
exchange large video files and stream live video programming
drove the development of this network technology. Here are some
statements on delivering large amounts of data at high speeds:
- In a 1993 paper in reaction to the National Telecommunications
and Information Administration's proposed goals, New York Law
School Professor Michael Botein writes: "This area is fraught
with perils ... the U.S. government and industry should proceed
with caution in entering the new digital age. High-capacity
fiber systems probably will become a mainstay of all developed
countries' telecom infrastructure at some point in the next
millennium. For the moment, however, it might be wise to slow
the whole process down a bit. After all, the U.S. should know
by now that being first into a new technology is not always
a benefit; the ... experience with NTSC television should be
a nightly reminder to U.S. telecom policy planners of the value
of letting others make the mistakes."
- In a 1995 article for Computerworld, Gordon Bell looks ahead.
Bell proposed a plan for a U.S. research and education network
in a 1987 report to the Office of Science and Technology in
response to a congressional request by Al Gore. He was a technology
leader at Digital Equipment Corporation (where he led the development
of the VAX computer) and with Microsoft: "Phone communications
will evolve toward a single, pervasive digital dial tone for
high-speed networks. These will offer bandwidth scalable to
several hundred megabits per second for handling video over
phone lines and virtual reality."
- In his 1994 book "City of Bits," MIT computer scientist William
J. Mitchell writes: "The bondage of bandwidth is displacing
the tyranny of distance, and a new economy of land use and transportation
is emerging - an economy in which high-bandwidth connectivity
is an increasingly crucial variable … The most crucial task
before us is not one of putting in place the digital plumbing
of broadband communications links and associated electronic
appliances (which we will certainly get anyway), nor even of
producing electronically deliverable 'content,' but rather one
of imagining and creating digitally mediated environments for
the kinds of lives that we will want to lead and the sorts of
communities that we will want to have."
- In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Nicholas Negroponte,
founder of MIT's Media Lab, writes: "In 2020, people will look
back and be mighty annoyed by our profligate insistence on wiring
a fiber-coax hybrid to the home rather than swallowing the cost
of an all-fiber solution. They'll ask, 'Why didn't our parents
and grandparents plan more effectively for the future?' As far
as the American home is concerned, the phone companies have
the right architecture (switched services), and the cable companies
have the right bandwidth (broadband services). We need the union
of these: switched broadband services. But how do we get from
here to there? No one will deny that the long-term solution
is to install fiber all the way, but the benefits seem diffuse
and the costs acute. In the eyes of the telcos and cable companies,
the question is financial - and since the near-term balance
sheets don't add up, fiber is not being laid all the way. One
way around this problem is to circumvent the private market
and let a telecommunications monopoly build the infrastructure,
which is exactly what Telecom Italia is doing ... Italy will
have a far better multimedia telecommunications system than
the United States by 2000."
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