The
Future of the Web
© 2007
Jason OConnor
A man switches on a tiny wireless chip that has been surgically
implanted behind his ear, which then synchs up with the Web wherever
he is in the world. The mere thought of logging in to the Internet
triggers the system to turn on and connect to the Web. He could
be on a bus or at the beach and from all outward appearances he
is just staring off into space. But he sees a three dimensional
artificial world before him that he can manipulate any way he chooses
by thought alone.
By looking at the trends of today we can begin to develop a picture
of what the Web of tomorrow will look like. I believe the Web will
improve and grow in a way that will dwarf its present existence
and will improve and enrich everyone’s lives way beyond what
we can imagine today. The Internet will become as integrated into
everyone’s everyday lives as much as, and even more so, than
the television or phone (in developed nations first, then everywhere).
Television, communications and the Internet will merge.
The Web will become increasingly interactive, realistic, three
dimensional, and virtual. Two dimensional displays will evolve into
three dimensional displays. And the Net will probably incorporate
more than the two senses of seeing and hearing. It will first be
integrated into all other electronics such as household appliances,
automobiles, and anything else with a microchip. Then it will be
integrated directly into our brains.
I also envisage this new Web creating an unimaginably sophisticated
data sphere that surrounds and envelops the world like a warm electronic
blanket, connecting everyone and everything. And it may some day
become an autonomous and sentient entity in its own right that we
come to depend on for life itself.
When a person switches on his wireless Web chip and connects with
the Net, he'll be looking at and interacting with the Web of the
future. He'll manipulate objects, click on links, download information,
and communicate with anyone by simply thinking it. In fact, when
he navigates to a retail store to buy products, for instance, he'll
be able to “pick them up” and “feel” the
products he wants to buy merely by thinking the appropriate thoughts.
In the future, Web-based software agents will constantly build
dynamic lists and instructions to help people in personal and professional
activities. These software agents are subroutines, or small programs,
which may be part of a responsive Internet Operating System that
serves humanity, or destroys it. Programs may become responsible
for doing some of the basic thinking that we get stuck routinely
doing today. Furthermore, it may be responsible for storing some
of our memories as well.
The Web has already become something we rely on for memory, and
that reliance will only grow. We'd rather look something up on a
search engine two or three times instead of trying to remember it.
Eventually, we'll come to rely on the Web for memories and immediate
information so that it will seem like we are missing a part of our
own brain when not "jacked in" to the Net, to borrow a
phrase from science fiction writer William Gibson. The Net will
be such a part of our existence that we may even feel profound separation
and isolation when not connected.
The Evolution in the Way in Which We View the Web
- Prediction
Of course we're not going to jump from flat screen LCD monitors
of today to displays that exist only "in our minds". Three
dimensional displays may be the bridge. There is a device in existence
today called a Heliodisplay (TM) that produces holograms which actually
exist in three dimensions and are created with photographic projection
using laser technology. It's possible that all displays will employ
this technology. The gaming industry ceaselessly works at making
artificial experiences more realistic and is a powerful driving
force in computer display technology.
The Web of our future will first be truly device independent where
each piece of equipment is a different window that peers into the
same global Web. From handheld devices not unlike the Star Trek
Communicators, to cell phones, automobile dashboards, embedded refrigerator
displays and MP3 players, all will be portals into the same World
Wide Web.
And of course everything will be connected. Instead of applications
running on individual personal computers and devices, applications
will operate on the Net and be accessible to anyone, creating a
loose Internet Operating System.
Ultimately, the Web of our future will most likely abandon standard
two dimensional and even three dimensional displays and instead
be projected right onto our corneas, skipping the middle man, so
to speak.
FutureWeb is Closer Than We Think
Already demonstrated in the lab is the ability to cause a computer
to react to thought alone. Duke University neuroscientist Miguel
Nicolelis works in the field of BMI (brain-machine interface). In
an experiment involving a monkey, a computer and a monitor, Nicolelis
and his team successfully caused the monkey to communicate with
and control a robotic arm through its brain’s neural signals
alone.
The monkey’s brain activity and signals were first monitored
with numerous electrodes inside its scalp while it manipulated a
joystick. The scientists taught the monkey to move the joystick
with its arms to accomplish movement on the monitor. The scientists
then took the joystick away, but continued everything else the same
way. Since the monkey’s brain was hooked up to the computer,
each time it had the thought of moving its arms, the desired affect
actually happened anyway on the monitor, triggered by the monkey's
thoughts alone. In fact, the monkey was even able to control an
artificial arm over the Internet 600 miles away in the same manner.
There are two important applications for this technology that are
driving its research: medicine and war, two constants in all of
human history. Doctors will someday be able to attach a prosthetic
arm to a patient, wire it up to her brain, and succeed in enabling
her to control the prosthetic fingers by simply thinking it.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) manages the
research for the U.S. Department of Defense. In 2003, DARPA invested
$23 million in BMI programs, including the one at Duke University
cited above. Their goal is to allow soldiers to control weapons
of all kinds by thought only. These super soldiers will be able
to stealthily navigate through a battlefield willing robotic gliders
above to drop their payloads of smart bombs on the enemy over the
next hill, without endangering their own lives.
Ethical questions aside, brain-machine interfacing will someday
mature and become integrated with our lives. Since the Web is already
such a part of our world, the marriage of the two is inevitable.
This technology can be utilized in the other direction as well.
Just like a thought can produce computer behavior, the computer
will someday be able to send back sensory data other than just sight
and sound. If a computer is hooked directly up to the brain, then
smell, taste and touch can be affected as well. The Web will literally
come to life.
The Semantic Web and the Contributions of Everyone
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, wrote a book called Weaving
the Web. Among the many profound ideas expressed are two concepts
relevant here. One is the Semantic Web, which is explained as “The
Web of data with meaning in the sense that a computer program can
learn enough about what the data means to process it.” Metadata
is the term used for data about data. Most Web pages today have
embedded in the html code metadata that gives information about
the Web page. Eventually, this information will become much more
robust, allowing more intelligent searches to become a reality.
The Semantic Web, or something similar, may have the potential
to help make the Internet an entity in its own right. Parallel processing,
the connecting of computers to make super computers, has been in
existence for some time now. In fact, that is how the human brain
operates, by conducting many operations at the same time.
The other fascinating idea Berners-Lee expressed in this landmark
book is that his original idea for the Web involved much more of
a two-way exchange of information. His original vision for the Web
was one of collaboration. He wanted people to be able to post information
to the Web as easily as it was to view information. Unfortunately,
the latter has been embraced more readily by the general population.
But now we see the emergence of "Web 2.0", a fairly new
term that describes an innovative type of website that is built
on the participation of its users. Today we are finally achieving
what Berners-Lee had in mind all along. With websites such as MySpace,
YouTube, Flickr, Squidoo, and Digg, non-technical users can now
post information and contribute to the Web as easily as they can
access it. The Web of the future will embrace this concept even
more, causing its speed of growth to eclipse today's rate.
It is not hard to see that the Web could be a vast parallel processing
farm, that given enough artificial intelligence programming, the
infusion of Semantic Web systems, and the constant additions from
billions of intelligent beings (namely humans), it could have the
potential of becoming something of a unified intelligence, a data
sphere that surrounds the planet and is more powerful that the sum
of its parts.
This concept of technology's exponential growth turning onto something
we cannot even imagine with the possibility of the Internet becoming
sentient is not new. Vernor Vinge, a retired Professor of Mathematics
at San Diego State University, a computer scientist and a science
fiction author, wrote about the Singularity in a 1993 essay.
A superintelligence emerging out of the Web was also written about
by Kevin Kelly in Wired Magazine in August 2005 and also published
on KurzweilAI.
". . . we are on the edge of change comparable to the
rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is
the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than
human intelligence.
This planet-sized computer is comparable in complexity to a
human brain. Both the brain and the Web have hundreds of billions
of neurons (or Web pages). Each biological neuron sprouts synaptic
links to thousands of other neurons, while each Web page branches
into dozens of hyperlinks. That adds up to a trillion "synapses"
between the static pages on the Web. The human brain has about 100
times that number—but brains are not doubling in size every
few years. The Machine [the Web of the future] is."
A quick online search will yield many examples of bizarre concepts
that existed only in science fiction later becoming reality. The
Web is something that Earth has never seen before. It not only has
the potential to connect everyone, but it can also extend every
brain and grow exponentially. It may take a lot longer than anyone
thinks right now, but eventually the Web of the future will be vastly
different and more powerful than we can possibly imagine today.
Jason OConnor,
President Oak Web Works, LLC
Copyright 2007
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