Humanity is at a precipice; its destiny is at stake

 

The following sections percentage picks of feedback from era specialists and futurists who intricate on the ways internet use has fashioned humanity during the last 50 years and don't forget the ability future of digital existence. They are gathered under wide, overarching ideas, instead of being tied to the specific themes highlighted above. Many of the solutions contact on more than one aspects of the digital future and aren't neatly boxed as addressing only one part of the tale. Some responses are lightly edited for fashion and clarity.

The careful optimism expressed by way of the various specialists canvassed for this file grew out of a shared religion in humanity. Many described the present day state of techlash as a catalyst in order to result in a more inclusive and inviting internet. Some of these comments are protected below.

Micah Altman, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and head scientist within the application on information science at MIT Libraries, wrote, “The overdue historian Melvin Kranzberg insightfully found, ‘Technology is neither properly nor awful; neither is it neutral.’ In the final 50 years, the net has been transformative and disruptive. In the following 50, statistics, conversation and AI generation show each sign of being even more so. Whether historians of the future judge this to be appropriate or horrific will depend on whether we will make the societal preference to drive in democratic values and human rights into the design and implementation of these systems.”

Juan Ortiz Freuler, a coverage fellow, and Nnenna Nwakanma, the interim policy director for Africa at the Web Foundation, wrote, “Unless we see an intensive shift quickly, the net as we understand it will probably be recalled as a missed opportunity. History will underline that it can had been the idea for extensively inclusive societies, wherein networked groups ought to actively outline their collective future. A device that could have empowered the humans however have become a device for mass surveillance and population manipulate. A device that would have strengthened the social fiber by using allowing humans to realize every other and percentage their memories, but out of it grew huge inequalities among the related and not-connected, each locally and throughout international locations.”

Steven Miller, vice provost and professor of statistics systems at Singapore Management University, stated, “Overall, the destiny will be often for the higher. And if it isn't in the main for the better, the motives will NOT be because of the generation, in step with se. The motives could be because of picks that people and society make – political alternatives, alternatives in step with how we govern society, selections in line with how we attend to the needs of our populations and societies. These are humans and political problems, not generation ones. These are the elements in order to dominate whether or not people are better off or worse off.”

Paul Jones, professor of records technology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, replied, “While the internet was constructed from the start to be open and extensible, it is based on groups of consider. As we're seeing this reliance has robust downsides – phishing, faux information, over-customization and tribalism for starters. Adding systems of agree with, starting with the promises of blockchain, will and ought to cope with this failing. Will the subsequent internet improve the positives of individualism, of equality and of cooperation or will we turn out to be no more than Morlocks and Eloi? I continue to be constructive as we cope with no longer handiest the engineering demanding situations, but also the human and social challenges bobbing up. All equipment, which includes media, are extensions of guy. ‘We shape our equipment and thereafter our tools form us,’ as McLuhan is credited for noticing. Nothing may be extra actual of the following internet and our lives when it comes to statistics get admission to. Can we create in methods now unknown as soon as we're less reliant on memorization and calculation? Will we be higher at fixing the troubles we create for ourselves? I solution with an extensive ‘Yes!’ however then I’m still watching for the private jetpack I changed into promised as a baby  thebeyondbeauty

Ray Schroeder, companion vice chancellor for online mastering at the University of Illinois, Springfield, wrote, “On the scale of the discovery of fire, the wheel and cultivation of vegetation, the interconnection of human beings may be judged as a very vital step toward becoming the beings of the universe that we are destined to be.”

Charlie Firestone, communications and society program govt director and vice president at the Aspen Institute, commented, “Fifty years from now's science fiction. There certainly is not any telling with quantum computing, AI, blockchain, digital reality, broadband (10G?), genetic engineering, robotics and different interesting trends affecting our lives and environments…. It’s just too a ways beforehand to assume whether we are able to be in a virtual feudal machine or quite democratic. But I do believe that we will be on our way to re-speciation with genetics, robotics and AI combined to make us, in these days’s picture, superhuman. I keep in mind that there are numerous ways that the technology will cause worse lives, particularly with the capability of entities to weaponize surely any of the technology and displace jobs. However, the advances in medicinal drug extending lives, the ability to lessen intake of electricity, and the use of robotics and AI to resolve our problems are obvious. And we should agree with that our successors will opt for ways to enhance and extend the human species rather than annihilate it or re-speciate.”

Edward Tomchin, a retiree, stated, “Human beings, homo sapiens, are a maximum awesome species which is easily seen in a comparison with how a ways we have come in the short time for the reason that we climbed down out of the timber and emerged from our caves. The pace with which we are presently advancing leaves the destiny open to a huge variety of hypothesis, but we've got overcome much in the beyond and could retain to achieve this in pursuit of our expectations. I’m self-important of my species and confident in our destiny.”

 

Garland McCoy, founder and leader improvement officer of the Technology Education Institute, wrote, “I desire in 50 years the internet will nevertheless be the Chinese fireworks and now not grow to be the British fine particles.”

Angelique Hedberg, senior corporate plan analyst at RTI International, said, “If we pick out a destiny we need in 50 years, and paintings in the direction of creating it, there's a nonzero probability we will attain a model of that destiny. In that vein of concept, we will see waves of platform organizations that change the way we stay and enjoy our lives. The platform corporations that exist today will fade, as will those that follow. This isn't always because they fail, however as an alternative, because they prevail. We will find a way to make choices in a network of choices. In 50 years, more than one generations of a circle of relatives will gather for dinner and percentage points of interest, smells, sounds, tastes and touches, even if they're in unique hemispheres, nations and time zones. You’ll be at a infant’s social pastime and they will hear the voices [of] all of individuals who love (and critique) him. You will say goodbye to growing older cherished ones, although they cannot pay attention you. This will all manifest with the help of generation (some embedded in our brain) that know our want and desires higher than we recognize our personal. The definition of what it approach to be human will evolve and the laws and law will comply with, albeit in a much less than direct manner. We will price governments in new and distinct approaches, and we can assume greater from our technology systems. The deluge of facts will offer new inputs into the selection fashions for structures, bringing more readability to the short-term blessings and lengthy-term dangers, in return making the monetary choices greater social, environmental and ethical. Where laws and policies can positioned a bottom line, they may. Where regulation and rules can not, the planet will step in and regulate the extra

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