Kevin Kelly: Predicting The Next 5000 Days Of The Web

If you look at the pace of technicalogical developement over the past 2000 years there was very little technological progress until the last few hundred years. In fact, a hundred years ago we were still an agriculture based society that largely relied on horses for transportation and to work our farms. Oh how the times have changed.

Computers are a big component of new technological breakthroughs such as mapping human DNA, creation of tiny nanobots that can repair human tissue to voice activated "smart computers" (Apple's Siri). Frankly the exponential progress of technology is a bit scary at times, and makes me wonder if one day we might accidentally open Pandora's box.

Consider, the U.S. developed the first atomic bomb and ended WWII. What if Germany had discovered it 2 years earlier? What if Iran develops an atomic weapon and gives it to terrorists? What if we create some other new technology that mankind is not ready to safely use or handle?

According to one of Kevin Kelly's predictions, in the next 5000 days, humans will become a part of the of the internet or global mind.  We won't simply interact with it by entering or retrieving data, but will be an extension of the global mind, and an integral component of it.

"The next 5,000 days of the internet will bring a symbiotic relationship between man and the digital world, neither existing fully without the other.  We will increasingly be dependent on the internet and it will increasingly be dependent on us."

Kelly says the tradeoff for this kind of connectivity is that people will have to become "transparent". I think he is absolutely right about that, which is why I don't think we are quite ready for it (at least Americans).

Forces that affect success:
Social: Americans value their privacy. Personally I think there is already too much information available about me - I don't care to be more "transparent" than I already am. Big Brother could be lurking just around the corner.
Legal: At some point there is going to be a conflict between privacy laws and technology. Hopefully privacy will win.