David Yerle read recently that Big Data is becoming a global nervous system. The constant stream of information is gathered into billions of nodes which process it in a matter not unlike our brain. The Internet is starting to become something akin to a biological entity which grows, processes information and reacts to stimuli.
The Internet is also getting progressively smarter, since the number of nodes that constitute it are gaining in power and in quantity. Nowadays people connect to the Internet not only through computers, but through a myriad of hand-held devices which get improved every year.
Of course, the smarter part of the Internet is the humans who control it. If there were only computers, with no people to interact with them, the Internet would be a really dull place. So part of the net’s intelligence is actually contributed by us. But will things always be this way?
Maybe not. Maybe one day computers will smart us and will start using the Internet for their own purposes. Maybe it will be the whole net which will become a superhuman intelligence and start acting in ways we cannot predict. In a way, it has already happened, since humans themselves are part of the net. It is conceivable that the sum of our efforts constitutes something which is bigger than ourselves. Something that transcends us somehow.
Will the Internet turn against us? Will it one day decide we are not longer necessary? David Yerle doubts it. After all, she needs us. As nodes, as contributors to her intelligence. A superhuman Internet is still an Internet made by humans, updated by humans. It is, in a way, human.
David Yerle wonders what you think. Should we be worried?
David Yerle Wrote. 