The expanding metaverse: wild west of the future

One thing many utopiac visions of a technological singularity fail to consider are the mitigating social, ethical, cultural, and economic factors that influence the development of technology.

This article by Jamais Casco illustrates my point. I'm sure that two decades ago futurists pontificating about the glorious democratization of information on the Internet didn't anticipate spam e-mail. This is not to say the benefits of the Internet are nullified by spam, but it demonstrates the practical and unexpected ramifications of new technology.

Currently, there is very little accountability on the Internet. Almost every action I take is anonymous and largely unfiltered. There are measures in place to prevent cybercrime, but it goes largely unreported and unchecked.

It is interesting to consider social behavior on the Internet within the context of anonymity and the moral vacuum it can create. I am reminded of Plato's Republic where Glaucon proposes a character, Gyges, who becomes corrupt when he discovers a ring that makes him invisible. Plato spends a good deal of his work proving that an unjust man is unhappy even if there is no social pressure for him to be unhappy with his injustice (and the inverse.)

The Internet truly provides an opportunity to be anonymous and invisible, and without social and legal pressures to suppress "amoral" tendencies. The result is very nearly the Gyges hyptohesis incarnate.

One only has to look at the anonymous comments on a political blog to see that people are far less concerned with decorum or even harassment via the anonymous medium of the Internet. I should note that I am considering Internet "handles" to be anonymous identities as there is virtually no verification process for any self-reported information.

As the Internet begins to merge with the physical world, the so-called "metaverse," I believe greater accountability will be necessary and inevitable.

Actions on the Internet already have real world ramifications, but they aren't usually directly physical. As soon as people can be physically affected by actions on the Internet; your car windshield being hacked to display ads for example, accountability will follow Adam Smith's invisible hand.

Even as people become more immersed in digital networks and social contracts develop to promote trust in those networks; the information superhighway is still a little more Mad Max than Family Vacation.

Oh, and if you don't believe that hacking your windshield is possible; check out this humorous article about advertising in the future.

-Robot Crusoe

Redefining social Internet networks

Facebook and Myspace might be growing at an incredible rate, but I believe they represent a very early manifestation of the future for on-line social networking.

One limitation of most social networks, like Facebook, is that they only exist on Facebook. That is to say, if I want to do any social networking, I have to leave whatever website I'm currently viewing, and log into the Facebook server, or at least open a new tab or browser window.

This is counter-intuitive to the natural social experience where we interact while engaging in other behavior, be it work or entertainment.

Google is already addressing this aspect of social networking with OpenSocial. By integrating social networking into regular navigation, people can connect and share information via common interests and "web proximity", just like people might meet and socialize in real life when engaging in common-interest activity.

I think the next step is to integrate web navigation and networking with physical proximity. Imagine portable Google-type maps that know where you are, tell you how to get where you want, what you can buy or do there, and if any of your friends or people you might want to meet are there too. Much of this already exists for products like the Iphone, but it isn't fully integrated into a single easy to use navigation function.

I'm imagining navigating Internet "geography" concurrently with physical geography. My wireless device accesses and presents information regarding things around my physical location; menus, traffic reports, breaking news, retail, friends, etc.

Some incipient "proxemic" and mobile networking technology:

"Bluedating" services like Serendipity.
Nintendo DS wifi gaming.
The iPhone 3G's maps with GPS.
Twitter

-Robot Crusoe

Note: I admit I'm still playing catch-up with some of this technology; now that I'm keeping this blog, I try to stay abreast of the latest and greatest things going on in mass communication; but there's always stuff I don't know. Don't hesitate to call attention to anything that you think is relevant.

Free Broadband internet

Reuters reports that the FCC wants to auction a section of wireless airwaves for a buyer to provided free wireless broadband to Americans. Conditions would include coverage for at least half of the U.S. in four years and a filter to prevent access to pornographic content.

If successful, free wireless broadband would have far reaching social implications. Not only would a greater degree of the population have access to the Internet, but access anywhere.

This consistent wireless coverage would provide an infrastructure for all sorts of network devices, not the least of which would be portable wifi phones. If reliable, consumers could forgo expensive cell service and access the Internet and telephone service anywhere for free.

I can imagine phone companies won't just roll over and take it, as they certainly haven't taken domestic VoiP services competition lying down. One hopes that network neutrality will prevail and consumers will have access to the best and cheapest service.

Universal wireless Internet connectivity is the future of the Internet's evolution and a necessary step towards a truly hyper-connected society. As barriers to information access come down, more and more people will turn to the Internet as a resource for information sharing.

Not only does this lead to further democratization of information, but a reliance on the technology for more and more intra and interpersonal activities.

If we cannot fathom living without our Internet and cell phones, does that already make us transhuman?

-Robot Crusoe

FOOTNOTE: Here's the FCC's proposal

Social Networks for Science

My new favorite time waster isn't such a waste of time:

Fold it! is a flash puzzle game from the University of Washington's schools of computer science & engineering and biochemistry.



Players manipulate protein chains with a 3D interface. The goal: the highest score by folding the most compact and efficient chain.

The results of the competition turn up predictive protein configurations that could help scientists understand how proteins play a role in causing or curing disease.

Computers have been doing this for a while, but it is time consuming and expensive. This relatively simple game attempts to capitalize on human problem solving skills en masse.

If a thousand human minds concurrently try to solve a given puzzle while connected in real time, could the resulting network be described as a "hive mind" or super-brain?

I think the individual minds could be described as nodes in a larger intelligence, each interpreting and generating information that is compiled and prioritized by the network.

What do you think?

-Robot Crusoe

Internet on your mind

This will be a short post to introduce a topic I want to address in more depth when I have more time.

I read this article several months ago and I've been mulling over something that appears near the end.

The subject of the article concerns a Zogby poll about the role of the Internet in people's lives. One thing in particular stuck out:

Only 11 percent of respondents said they would be willing to safely implant a
device that let them use their mind to access the Internet although one in five
would insert a chip into a child 13 years old or younger to help track them.

Not only are one out of 10 people in the sample open to the idea of a cerebral cyber-surfing, but Zogby thought it was a question worth asking.

What sort of ramifications would wireless brain Internet have for humanity? Knowledge would take on a wholly different aspect. What difference is there between looking up a piece of information in your own database (memory) or on the Internet if it can be done almost instantly and without physical effort?

I'm sure the technology for this sort of interface is a ways off, but if Zogby is polling about it; then it's on someone's mind.

-Robot Crusoe

Cellular Sigularity

This article about hyper-connectivity, found on Reuters.com last month, didn't give me much pause. It shows that more North Americans would choose their cell phone over their wallet if they had to leave their home for 24 hours with only one item.

Wouldn't you take your cell phone? I feel any situation requiring a 24 hour evacuation of my home is probably an emergency, and as such, I want to be in touch with my family, friends, and emergency services. All things that are apparently more important to me than the driver's license, college ID, Kroger card, and 27 cents in my wallet.

But what if you had to choose between your phone or your clothes?

In the States we might choose pants over hyper-connected public nudity, but citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo would disagree.

The Washington Post ran this article in 2006 about cell phone use in the war-torn African nation.

In the article, Gilbert Nkuli of Vodacom Congo, says ""People would rather be without a shirt and trousers and they'd rather go for days without food, instead of not having a phone."

You really should read the whole article for a glimpse at how cell phones are changing the developing world; and how the developing world is changing cell phones.

Pre-paid cell phone minutes can be transferred from one phone to another, giving rise to a new barter system.

This economy is subject to virtually no regulation, doesn't require customer proximity to make a transaction and enables people in dangerous places to store their money safely... in their cell phone.

Will first world nations be outstripped by the emerging wireless markets in developing countries as they adapt more quickly and creatively to the potential of hyper-connected economy?

We might believe we started the cell phone revolution, but Americans are not using cell phones like the rest of the world, and especially Africa. According to Eprom, people in third world nations represent the majority of cell phone subscribers. Africa leads the world with an annual 65% ride in mobile phone use.

Pre-paid phone minutes may never become the leading global currency, but it isn't hard to imagine a truly global network giving rise to an economy that operates without the backing of a government.

Especially when all those cell phones in Africa start connecting to the Internet at high speeds. That Washington Post article is two years old. If and when African cell phone users start connecting, they will represent the lion's share of Internet users as well.

It may be that the cell phone will be the device that begins to close the huge economic and educational disparity between the peoples of the industrialized and developing worlds.

-Robot Crusoe


More blogs and articles to check out about cell phone use in developing countries:
Cell phones may help "save" Africa
Motorola Introduces Dirt-Cheap Cell Phone For Developing Countries
Video: Future of health care in developing nations tied to cell phones

Social Singularity

Much has been said about the so called "technological singularity."

The term, coined by mathematician and science fiction author Vernor Vinge, refers to a proposed point in the future when intelligent machines will be able to make themselves more intelligent; setting off a cycle of recursive augmentation resulting in intelligences beyond human comprehension.

While there is healthy debate about the validity of this theory, I think there is something to be said for the obvious and accelerating changes in our day to day lives; especially on the social level.

For instance, I find my frequent personal interaction to be less and less defined by proxemics.

This was painfully obvious to me recently when my neighbors upstairs threw a rowdy rendez-vous. I won't go into too many details, but I did end up chasing a nascent fraternity slob out of the building when he urinated on my door. I ran upstairs to demand satisfaction from my neighbors, and confronted with a hedonistic mob, could not identify who actually lived in the apartment and who had just dropped in for debauchery.

I regularly correspond with friends half a world away and I had never spoken with the people living on the other side of my ceiling.

I must not be the only person to observe this phenomena; now there's a website for people who want to meet their neighbors on-line instead of meeting them in real life.

Meettheneighbors.org provides a free homepage for neighbors to communicate, organize, and (hopefully) avoid unfortunate urination.

This blog will address the more human aspect of accelerating returns, specifically in terms of social networking and how it is changing and will change human interaction through the next century.

I am interested not only in websites that categorize themselves as "social networks," Facebook , Myspace and the like; but any aspect of electronic communication that is changing or could change the way we interact with each other.

Before I regularly used a text messaging service on my cell phone, I was appalled to see people one-thumbing as they barrelled down the highway.

Now I admit I've occasionally squeezed off a, "Be there in two minutes!" while merging. (My obstinate refusal to use text message abbreviations probably makes this even more dangerous.)

Wherever all of this technology is leading us, we're heading there quickly and getting faster.

Many of my posts will come from personal observation and I in no way intend to represent myself as an expert on anything; I am merely an observer embedded in this rapidly unfolding and increasingly complex social fabric.

When possible I will link to reputable research and scientific inquiry; unless cited or linked, I'm pulling it all out of my blog.

-Robot Crusoe