Chapter 4: Recombinant Architecture

Now it is often better strategy to form multipartner, geographically distributed alliances of various specialist groups (consultants, suppliers, subcontractors, and so on) as needed for particular projects, then to disband and regroup as old projects end and new ones begin. We are entering the era of the temporary, recombinant, virtual organization-of business arrangements that demand good computing and telecommunications environments rather than large, permanent home offices.

Chapter 4: Recombinant Architecture

Merchants will find that they can dispense with sales floors and sales staff altogether and just maintain servers with databases … Consumers might either “window shop” by remotely accessing such virtual stores, or they might delegate the task to software shopping agents that go out on the Net with shopping lists, inspect the specifications and prices of the merchandise on offer, and return with reports on the best available matches and prices. Closure of a sale can immediately trigger a delivery order at a warehouse, update an inventory database, and initiate an electronic money transfer … Retail location becomes a matter of being in the right directories … The stock is bigger and the selection larger than in the mightiest big-box off-ramp superstore. The things that remain in physical form are warehouses … and delivery vehicles.

Chapter 4: Recombinant Architecture

Even the now-ubiquitous ATMs (in their role as cash dispensers, at least) will become obsolete if coins and bills are eventually eliminated. This is a fairly straightforward technical possibility; a combination of network transfers, checks, credit cards, debit cards, ubiquitous point-of-sale terminals, and replacement of coin-operated gizmos like parking meters with electronic card-reading devices clearly could yield a cash-free society. Personal terminals, for making and receiving payments anywhere, could be integrated with laptop or palmtop computers or could be specialized wallet-sized devices … Cash money and associated transaction points may soon disappear entirely. Today’s Willie Suttons are learning to crack computer security, not safes.

Chapter 4: Recombinant Architecture

Stores could have detectors for convicted shoplifters, playgrounds and schools could have them for pedophiles, and abused spouses could have them for their former partners … Movements could be monitored continuously and cross-checked against crime scenes and times. Of course the system would not be complete without effective ways to apply immobilizing force and punitive violence. But that doesn’t seem too difficult. Anklets could automatically sound loud alarms when triggered by entry to forbidden places or when activated remotely by wardens. There might be some behavior-monitoring capacity built into an anklet or implant, together with a drug-release mechanism … The state will no longer need walls and watchtowers to enact its legal monopoly on confinement and violence. Telecommunications will do the job instead.

Chapter 4: Recombinant Architecture

Not only may vehicles sense where they are in the road system, but the road system may also be equipped with electronic sensors enabling it to detect where the vehicles are. So the old ideas of the tollbooth and the on-ramp meter can be updated; charges for the use of a road can, in principle, be adjusted instantaneously according to the level of road congestion. The task of the smart vehicle then becomes not just one of calculating the shortest or quickest path to a specified destination, but of computing the cheapest path or of finding a reasonably quick route that does not cost too much.In the future, travel through cities will involve continuous information exchange between smart vehicles and smart roadway systems.