Connections

Please read Bill Joy's article in Wired: Why the future doesn't need us. It is insightful, thought provoking and worthy of careful consideration. The issues he discusses should be of concern to everyone.

How I came to read the article today seems not unrelated to the concerns raised in it and increases rather than relieves my anxiety. In what follows, I will try to explain why.

Progress in understanding often comes from associating previously disjoint information. Combining facts or ideas that previously had never been considered together can lead to new insights, understanding and abilities - new knowledge that is more significant than might be expected.

When I was in university, I worked for a professor with several degrees in the biological and physical sciences. He told me, in effect, that the most interesting, capable and impressive people he had ever met or expected to meet all had multi-disciplinary backgrounds and it was this diversity of their knowledge and experience which allowed them to bring together what had previously been separate, producing new knowledge and insight.

Today, I read a humorous posting regarding a question from a somewhat naieve user of computers that, among other things, included a link to a picture of Bill Joy. Somewhat embarassingly, but as is increasingly frequent as I get older, I was certain that I knew who Bill Joy was, but couldn't recall anything specific, so I googled him. Of course, Wikipedia has an article on him, which I read and which jogged my memory.

That article had an intriguing link: "Why the future doesn't need us". - another Wikipedia page with a link to the Wired article of the same name. So, having some time to spare today, I followed the link and read the article.

Please read the article, but to paraphrase and condense extremely, I will say that the essence of the article is that there are risks associated with the advancement of our knowledge and technology; that the risks are growing as the power of our technology increases; and that, with the speed at which knowledge and technology are advancing, these risks are now or will very soon be so great that we need to be more cautious in our further development and use of knowledge and technology.

My reading the article today is related to all this, and compunds my concerns arroused by the article, because I began reading about a problem in programming and ended up, only a few minutes later, reading an article that I think is of quite profound importance. Had it not been for the Internet and Google and Wikipedia, I never would have come across these very different bits of information in the same day and almost certainly wouldn't have associated them with each other in any way, yet now, they are associated for me, and the gap between them is as easily bridged by others as it was by me. I am no one special.

In this case, the combination of ideas does not result in anything that will change the world, but the linking and association of information that is inherent in the Internet, Google, Wikipedia, PerlMonks, Wired (the sites I browsed in this case), and many other similar resources, is staggering and profoundly significant. While many of the links created are trivial, no doubt there are many nascent links of profound importance, easily but not yet followed or anticipated, and without precedent in anyones consideration.

The Internet exposes a vast resource of information and the bits of information made accessible by it are more significant as a part of the whole than they would be separately because they can be so easily related and combined, even by people like me without particularly significant education or connections or experience.

There was a time when individuals made discoveries of great import. Then, for a while, it seemed, only relatively large and well funded teams of people could make much progress in extending our collective knowledge and ability. But the Internet empowers everyone to learn and access a vast diversity of information. It seems again that individuals have at their disposal the means to learn and significantly advance our understanding.

Why is this troubling? A basic principle of security that I have been taught and learned to appreciate through the years is that security can be improved if systems can be created such that several people would have to collude over a period of time in order to successfully subvert the system to their own ends. The risk of several "bad apples" successfully working together in secrecy is lower than the risk of one "bad apple" working in secrecy. The need for large teams and substantial financial resources in order to significantly advance knowledge and technology provided some assurance that the effort would not long remain secret. And exposure would allow a broader consideration and control of the activity.

Maybe I was just naieve to think that there was much impedement to individuals making breakthroughs in isolation, but certianly doing so is made easier by the Internet.

Thus, the Internet and the information and tools it provides access to, increase the risk that someone will accidentally or thoughtlessly or maliciously develop something of great harm to us all, as individuals and as a society.

I am concerned most of all because of my experience of the profound inability of people, on average and in general, to successfully manage even very simple things successfully for long and with reasonable consideration and accommodation of the needs and interests of the broader community. Just think of your own experience of errors and accidents. How many of them, in hindsight, seem like they could have and should have been avoided. Yet we continue, collectivley, to make them.

It is somewhat amazing, given all the "accidents" and ignorantly self-interested and intentionally malicious or destructive acts that are committed so frequently, that we have survived as long as we have with the technology we already have. As our power, and in particular the power of individuals and small groups, continues to increase, how long can it be before something harmful on a grand scale occurs?

Compounding my worries, I came across John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" yesterday. I was pessimistic at best that there were sufficient feelings of fellowship in the world, and this confirms and compounds my worries.

I think I will read the Dalai Lama's "Ethics for the New Millennium", mentioned in Bill Joy's article. Maybe that will cheer me up. In the mean time, maybe I'll read the study guide.

In the mean time, the sun shone today and the grass is green and it is quiet and peaceful here were I am. There is much to be happy about.