Copyright Ian Pearson, BT Futurologist
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Feb 2001
In the beginning
there was the physical universe. When intelligent life originated with the
capability to internalize a representation of the physical universe, another
domain came into existence, mental space. When it became possible to
electrically link together devices which were physically separated, cyberspace came
into existence, though it wasnÕt recognised as such until much later.
Cyberspace is simply the name given to the notional space where some kind of
electronic transaction takes place. By this definition, a telephone call is
simply a meeting in cyberspace. More strict definitions might demand that some
representation of the notional space must exist in the machines at either end,
such as a VR environment, but this definition is very physical world centred so
is unduly limiting.
Man is a
visually dominated creature. A large part of our brains is dedicated to imaging
the outside world, and then internalizing the information from those images.
Our internal thinking processes are also dominated by visual analogies, hence
the use of the term ÔspaceÕ in the diagram.
Physical
space
Of these spaces,
we only understand physical space very well, since we spend all our time there.
Note that physical space includes both spatial and time dimensions. Physical space
is very diverse, but is entirely governed by laws of physics and as such is
limited in extent and is highly geographical or time constrained. Many
institutions such as shops and other distribution outlets effectively rely for
their existence on the geographical limitations in the physical world. The
inconvenience of distance makes direct buying from manufacturers difficult and
creates a wholesale industry and the physics of displaying many diverse
products in easy to compare ways to low purchase densities similarly creates a
retailing industry.
We also
understand our own mental space quite well, though not nearly as well as the
physical world around us. Introspection tells us something about our own minds
and we certainly can manipulate concepts and so on, but there is much about the
workings of our minds we donÕt understand since our attention is normal outward
directed. Understanding the minds of other people or trying to manipulate them
has been addressed by billions of person lifetimes of effort, still with
limited success. However, although this makes communication between minds
inefficient, there are of course many areas where we all agree. The fields of
human knowledge and culture are full of shared concepts, shared mental space. We
all agree that an object is a red ball, and all westerners understand the
concept of a file cabinet. From time to time, a new concept is created by
someone which is then spread to other peopleÕs minds to become part of their
mental space too. These new concepts take a lot of time to spread and often the
original concepts are modified substantially as they spread, so that many
people have slightly different views of the same space. This is good in that it
allows more creativity and new ideas, in the same way as mutations spur on
evolution. It is bad in that it interferes with and degrades the quality of
communication between minds.
Physical -
mental mappings
Because of the
obvious significance of physical space for our everyday existence, evolution
has directed us to each build up a strong mental picture of the physical world,
its various structures and behaviors, so we see a good mapping of the physical
space objects onto our mental. However, although our models need to be
sufficiently similar to those of other people to allow exchange of information
(how do I get toÉ), it is not necessary for them to be exactly the same. I
might never have noticed a building or feature which forms a central part of
someone elseÕs model of a particular street.
This ability to
make mental models of physical space structures and behaviors has provided us
with the ability to conceptualize even fictional entities. Our imaginations can
picture structures which donÕt actually exist. Mental space has thus grown to
be much more than a representation of actual physical space and includes many
imaginary items too. We also use similar mechanisms for storing knowledge which
is quite abstract, and then built on these abstractions to develop and share
yet more abstractions, such as higher mathematics or works of abstract art. The
foundations for human mental space growth are thus being continuously laid. But
there are limitations. No-one could have imagined most of our modern
technologies in the 12th century because even the basic building blocks for the
concepts didnÕt exist then. Mental space mainly grows from existing seeds, with
very occasional larger jumps and out of the blue new concepts. Most growth
comes from recombining or modifying existing concepts or transferring and
applying concepts from one are in a different area.
Of course,
mental space can invent imaginary structures or processes and then we can
actually make physical space realizations of these so the crossover is
bi-directional. Indeed, it was probably this ability to visualize and then
execute our visualizations that moved us up the evolutionary ladder to Homo
sapiens. The result is a strong mapping between these two domains.
The influence of
the physical world on our mental space goes far beyond mapping out virtual representations
of our environment so we can find our way around. When we talk of knowledge
itself, we use terms such as Ôwhole areas of knowledgeÕ, Ôexploring the fieldÕ,
Ôpools of informationÕ, adjectives such as shallow and deep and so on. It seems
we find it very hard indeed to think without analogy to the physical world.
As our mental
space is foundationed in physical space, with later building purely within
mental space, so cyberspace has originated from both these previously existing
spaces. Since our understanding of the physical space is much greater, it is
here that we have seen the most early crossover. We already see cyberspace
emulations of the physical world, with cyberspace acting as an overlay on the
physical world. Virtual shopping arcades and even virtual tourism are being
explored as applications. We see electronic libraries, banks, magazines,
newspapers, even the multi-user domains are structured on pseudo-physical
imaginary rooms and so on. We are building complex virtual environments where
we can meet others. The whole structure of the internet is still viewed as a
set of places where we can go to and get information, or send our agents to.
Our web sites are seen as our little patch in cyberspace which people ÔvisitÕ,
Ôwander aroundÕ and Ôtake things awayÕ. It is conceptually a very physically
oriented space indeed. It seems as if current cyberspace really is just an
overlay on the real world, with its imaginary annexes.
Perhaps because
transmission of data requires moving signals down wires or through the air to
other geographic locations, it is very difficult indeed for us to forget the
geography, to forget the transmission, and to treat cyberspace as a domain
which truly is not geographically bound. Only when we are happy surfing the
web, do we forget that this information is in Australia, this in Sweden and
this in the US. Even in our imaginary meeting areas, it is as if cyberspace
were still limited by real world physics. Gravity and spatial relationships are
usually preserved and objects largely behave in everyday ways. It is hard
indeed for us to leave the physical domain.
But what of
non-physical cyberspace. How much do we see yet of mental space mapping into
cyberspace that do not also originate from physical space? We certainly see
abstract concepts such as advertising, retailing, security and encryption which
have little physical world root. Perhaps too, tools such as language
translation, a few sites which offer information processing, a few abstract
information representations or interfaces. In spite of our view of web sites as
ÔsitesÕ, they do have a large component which is non-physical in its nature,
being instead information and this is probably true of much of the
pseudophysical mapping in cyberspace. Because of the huge overlap between
physical and mental space, it is difficult to separate out the cyberspace
mapping from these domains.
But with all
these mappings, we are just beginning to scratch the surface. Just as we can
have whole field of human knowledge or culture which donÕt have any real
mapping onto the physical world, so we can have infinitely more in the
unlimited cyberspace domain than mappings from physical space and from mental
space.
However, of what
relevance is cyberspace that doesnÕt have at least a mental space mapping? Is
it like the tree falling in the forest when there is no-one there to hear
whether it makes a sound. The infinite potential of cyberspace will mostly have
to wait for us to catch up. However, machine intelligence will invent many of
its own concepts and execute those, sharing with us or keeping them within the
machine world. This is already happening with computer based design, evolving
software, artificial life work and so on, but this is just the beginning of the
flood. For now, we mostly map existing concepts, hoping for occasional flashes
of inspiration and cross fertilizing ideas from other fields. Computer based
intelligence and creativity is still too much in its infancy to contribute
significantly. The areas of cybercreatures and other forms of computer
generated cyberspace will be discussed more later.
While we may not
create much which is genuinely ÔnewÕ in the Ecclesiastical sense of the word, it
is in the mapping of existing physical and mental entities and processes that
much of the rewards will lie. Since cyberspace is a relatively new domain, this
mapping process is still in its early stages, and it is requiring a great deal
of experimentation to discover which mappings are worth making and in exactly
which form.
It is
disjointed. When someone plays in a virtual world on an isolated machine, that
virtual world is certainly part of cyberspace, but is not connected to any
other part. By contrast, no part of the physical universe is completely
isolated.
It is also
asymmetric. When the network is reconnected to the above machine, that part may
be connected to the rest of cyberspace either uni or bidirectionally, so that
the user may be able to see out with no-one permitted to see in. Also, a select
group of people may be able to see in, perhaps to different degrees. This is no
different conceptually from someone allowing a group of people a key to their
front door, or being able to go outside while not permitting anyone entry.
Appearances are
not fixed. While we all might agree that a ball is red, a cyberspace entity
might present itself very differently to different viewers, in different
conditions, or at different times. A virtual shopping arcade might be a cosmic
landscape with floating shops staffed by weird aliens to one user, while being
a conventional 1980s mall to someone else. Both could buy the same products.
Physics is
customizable. There are no God-given rules as to how things should behave or
interact. Imagination and skill are the only limits.
What use is
it?
The main
advantages of cyberspace are the absence or real world restrictions such as
time and space, its potentially infinite extent, and the resultant scope for
facilitating physical and mental processes which would otherwise be impossible
because of the constraints of these two domains.
Cyberspace
allows people to share a meeting even though they are geographically dispersed.
It allows a limited form of telepresence, where a user can see or do things as
if he were in a remote location. The only real limitation is that of course it
doesnÕt allow for direct manipulation or transfer of atoms so the user has to
rely on signalling to persons or machines to do this for him.
In the space
sense of cyberspace, we see the analogy of real estate, and this can be used
and marketed in the same ways as physical real estate. There are good positions,
centres of traffic, which are thus of high value and can command high premiums.
There are a few current kinds.
The first, the
likes of Yahoo and the other directory sites are good examples of highly
populated information centres. They act as access points to vast pools of
information - business, social, household and personal, including news,
magazines, entertainment and links to other areas of the web. They can offer
advertising opportunities, and as the sites become more intelligent, they have
the opportunity to target the advertising to each individual browser. These sites conceptually approximate to
libraries. Other competing internet technologies such as the fashionable Ôpush
technologyÕ is almost the equivalent of newspapers, albeit with some sections
thrown away, but still with a hefty amount of advertising. As these evolve,
they will become more like themed TV channels, with the user free to set up a
tuner for the favourite channels. Music and TV might even be included in their
material. Some writers suggest that this will replace browsing, but they miss
the point widely. News gathering is not the only thing people want from the
web, or even the main thing.
The second are
the virtual malls. As several shops which people like are grouped together in a
single site, it approximates to a real shopping mall. Many people visit these
areas, and those sites with the most attractive position on the screen or the
most eye-catching logo can attract business. They make sales and pay large fees
to the mall owner, just as in the physical world. The mall owner has to market
the mall to make it attract customers, or the shops wonÕt bother with it. They
may also have advertising.
The third kind of
traffic centre are meeting areas where people socialise. These are multi-user
domains, and may use any kind of media for the people to communicate with each
other. Here the service is simply meeting and interacting, so they attract
people through our most basic human needs. These sites can make money simply by
charging for access, by sales or by advertising. In this sense, people are just
another attractive form of content. People will be attracted to sites which
bring together people with whom they would wish to interact.
These sites are
normally quite distinct from each other, though we are just seeing the next
phase, where some sites offer a blend of these activities, growing from just a
library, mall or meeting area, to a collection of these, a virtual town centre.
As this phase matures, we will doubtless see entire virtual cities offering a
wide range of facilities. We will see high hit rates and high charges to
companies to set up shops there.
The short term
Ôreal estateÕ is a function of technology limitation. The web is fixed, with
everything accessible in fixed ways from fixed sites with fixed views. The two
browsers, Netscape and Explorer, present the information in fixed ways once it
is found. The user has very little control over information presentation, or
the ways in which sites are represented, other than choosing the font or
over-riding background screens.
However, as
mentioned above, cyberspace is completely dynamic, with arbitrary physics, and
can be mapped onto any mindset in any way. This gives the option to provide
tools which the user can use to make a personal cyberspace, in which the same
functionality of other sites still exists, but which are represented in ways
chosen by that user. The options still exists of course for a site to insist on
a fixed appearance, regardless of personal preferences, and there could be a
constant battle between the wish of the customer to have a flexible view and
that of the supplier trying to protect their brand images. Malls may have to
provide a mixture of the two, with overall theme customer chosen, but with
shops able to dictate look and feel within their space. However, many of the
less compelling malls will cease to exist as the user could easily build their
own to represent their personal Ôbookmark fileÕ. We will see later that shops
will have a reducing role in the new order in any case.
There are thus
many opportunities to make money in the mid term too. Firstly in selling tools
to visualise and customise environments, software to change bookmark files into
virtual environments. Secondly, selling imagination. Many people will not be
bothered to customise areas in terms of style, even if they want to choose
their own bookmarks. Some malls which are particularly attractive may continue
to exist, and may even offer a selection of appearances. Imaginative people
will be able to sell virtual environments to individual users, in which they
can see their own bookmarks as virtual objects or buildings. And of course there
will be a market selling to malls and shops, hoping to attract or keep custom.
Some people will still want others to make bookmark collections, in the form of
directories, and wonÕt bother to make their own customised selections. So
markets which already exist will not vanish, they will just suffer from strong
competition from people who just treat them as agent fodder. It is likely that
many people will buy
software and build their own environments, deciding themselves where the
hot spots are and how to arrange and visualise sites. These markets will be
distributed between software on the users machine and information stored in the
network by site operators, with on-line intelligence creating huge markets for
third parties too which simply donÕt exist yet.
Of course, not
only sites lend themselves to this approach. Any place, activity, piece of
information, person, robot, machine or other AI can have a representation in
these imaginary world, represented how the user wishes. A personal site may be
seen almost as an extension of that person or their home, a place where they
can bring guests and entertain them. Users cannot be expected to create all
this themselves, though a few dedicated enthusiast might. Most will adopt or
buy other peoples creations for part of their world and there will be a
thriving market. Virtual objects to put in virtual homes, pictures and
ornaments, pets and virtual friends will all inhabit these worlds.
As computer
intelligence increases, we will also see huge markets for agents of various
kinds. These will be discussed later
There will be as
much to be made in the mid term as there is in the short term. The money will
be redistributed and those slow to adapt will vanish, as will those which
simply become redundant.
Cross impacts and mappings
Cyberspace will
include mappings from both physical and mental space, but the changes we see
will not be visible exclusively in the creation of a new space. There will be
cross feedback which affects the existing domains too. We will thus see many
things in our world change as a result of cyberspace.
How will shops
protect their brand images in such a world? Doubtless, some of the big brands
will have the size needed to guarantee that people will want them in their personal
worlds even without the choice to customise their image. Their trademarks will
survive longest. Others will have to quickly fall in line or see their market
share disappear as people just ignore them and use other shops which allow
customers to decide. New ways of establishing brands will come into existence
in the struggle for survival, and the simple logo or trademark might be reduced
in importance.
Of course, for
shopping and similar activities, much or even most of the work will be done by
agents. These will wander round, looking for the best deals, negotiating and
sorting out shortlists, before bringing back the appropriate details to be
visualised and presented to the user in his personal world. Agents themselves
are not particularly impressed by brands unless specifically told to prefer
some brands to others by the user. The agent might know to prefer Sony to
Panasonic even if the other terms are the same, but would care nothing about
their trademarks or site styles. Sites which offer agent friendliness,
information and negotiation happily will be at least considered in a search.
Others which insist on people personally visiting their sites will see their
revenue fall sharply.
In this agent dominated
world, brands will be quickly disassociated with visual trademarks, since
people will rarely see them. The abstract qualities of a brand (reliability,
quality, associated lifestyle etc) will survive, and if the brand is perceived
by users to be sufficiently better than its competitors in some , or if people
are still exposed via other media to advertising about the brand, it will still
have a place in the network market. That is, so long as people care enough to
assign a value to them or tell their agents to prefer them.
However, it is
not all bad news for brands per se. As agents search the convenient universe
for suitable products in the right price range etc, people will be faced with
more choice, as competing products are increasingly forced to offer exactly the
same deals. Bewildering choice has been the source of brand expansion in
todayÕs world, and we will see many people making final decisions based on
trust of particular brands just the same as today. Nevertheless, it will
initially be a more dynamic marketplace with brands rising and falling on the
basis of trusted recommendation spreading quickly across the net. What might be
seen as best and sell like hot cakes today, might be found lacking by a trusted
reviewer tomorrow and another brand will take the lead. Agents might well be
instructed to check reviews automatically as part of a search. As this method
of shopping becomes established, this checking of reviewers will eventually
kill off many or most traditional brands and establish a totally new branding
methodology in their place
Instead of
relying on BT or Sony, or any other existing brand, what will happen is that
the reviewers will become increasingly important, and they will be the new
brands. An example will illustrate what will happen. Sainsbury home brand
products are made by a wide variety of manufacturers, but carry the Sainsbury
label as a guarantee of reasonable quality at less than top of the market
price, so people trust the label and buy many of their own brand products in
preference to well established traditional brands. Although Sainsbury and Tesco
would probably never agree to try the experiment, each of their own brands
would probably sell quite well in the otherÕs stores.
In cyberspace,
exactly this will happen again. Traditional brands will suffer in the face of
classifications by trusted review companies. People will decide how far up
market they want to buy, or want products to fit a particular lifestyle, and
there will be companies which define which products fit those categories of
quality, price, lifestyle or whatever. These review companies will be the AA
Hotel Guides and Which Magazines of the internet, but will have much greater
significance. They will be the new brands, horizontal across a wide range of products,
totally independent of either shops or manufacturers.
This branding
will not just apply to industrial age products, but to information too. Sites
will guarantee the quality of the information available from their links, and
these might be the Yahoos of the future. More probably, Yahoo and the other
directories and search engines will start doing this themselves. It was
suggested years ago that BT should be such a guarantor, capitalising on our
customersÕ trust. We could of course still do this and also extend it to
provide classifications on our shopping services, instead of the primitive
shopping malls with traditional shops.
While brands
will find the world changing rapidly, retailers will be caught completely
unprepared. Their existing business plans take account of having a site on the
net where people can visit their shop, but stop far short of taking account of a world where people
create a short list on the net, try things on in town, and then buy their
choice from the best or cheapest supplier with a single button click on their
PDA or cellphone. In this world, shops will be reduced to little more than
factory showrooms. They may make very few sales in the actual shop, especially
if people can get a 30% discount at the touch of a button by electronically
purchasing direct from the manufacturer. It may even become possible to narrow
down the selection from home, have the entire shortlist shipped to the home and
just return the rejects. Obviously, having a direct link to the manufacturer
also increases the market for customised products too, and all of this will
greatly increase the size of the distribution sector.
With the ability
to buy cheapest while still having all the choice and advice, it is difficult
to see how retailing can survive in its current form. The pain will be reduced
by this not happening overnight, but in the long term it seems inevitable.
Shopping will be cyberspace, between customer and manufacturer, with advice
from third parties. No wholesaling, no retailing, just service and
distribution.
However, just
because shops and retailing are fundamentally changed, does not mean that the
other aspects of shopping cannot still make money. By offering attractive
virtual environments, catering for the social and leisure sides of shopping,
and by offering the side services such as advice, agents, simple purchasing and
funds transfer, guarantees and assured quality of service, there is still much
money to be made in this industry, it is just that it will be made by different
organisations.
324 words
The stock
exchange long since stopped being a trading floor with scraps of paper and
became a distributed computer environment - it effectively moved into
cyberspace. The deals still take place, but in cyberspace. There are no virtual
environments yet, but the other tools such as automated buying and selling
already exist. These computers are becoming smarter and exist in cyberspace
every bit the same as the people. As a result, there is more automated analysis,
more easy visualisation and more computer assisted dealing. People will be able
to see which shares are doing well, spot trends and act on their computerÕs
advice at a button push. Markets will grow for tools to profit from shares,
whether they be dealing software, advice services or visualisation software.
However, as we
see more people buying personal access to share dealing and software to
determine best buys, or even to automatically buy or sell on certain clues, we
will see some very negative behaviours. Firstly, traffic will be highly
correlated if personal computers can all act on the same information at the
same time. We will see information waves, and also enormous swings in share
prices. Most private individuals will suffer because of this, while
institutions and individuals with better software will benefit. This is because
prices will rise and fall simply because of the correlated activity of the
automated software and not because of any real effects related to the shares
themselves. Institutions may have to limit private share transactions to
control this problem, but can also make a lot of money from modelling the
private software and thus determining in advance what the recommendations and
actions will be, capitalising enormously on the resultant share movements, and
indeed even stimulating them. Of course, if this problem is generally perceived
by the share dealing public, the AI software will not take off so the problem
will not arise. What is more likely is that such software will sell in limited
quantities, causing the effects to be significant, but not destroying the
markets.
A money making
scam is thus apparent. A company need only write a piece of reasonably good AI
share portfolio management software for it to capture a fraction of the
available market. The company writing it will of course understand how it works
and what the effects of a piece of information will be (which they will receive
at the same time), and thus able to predict the buying or selling activity of
the subscribers. If they were then to produce another service which makes
recommendations, they would have even more notice of an effect and able to
directly influence prices. They would then be in the position of the top market
forecasters who know their advice will be self fulfilling. This is neither
insider dealing nor fraud, and of course once the software captures a
significant share, the quality of its advice would be very high, decoupling
share performance from the real world. Only the last people to react would lose
out, paying the most, or selling at least, as the price is restored to
ÔcorrectÕ by the stock exchange, and of course even this is predictable to a
point. The fastest will profit most.
The most significant
factor in this is the proportion of share dealing influenced by that companies
software. The problem is that software markets tend to be dominated by just two
or three companies, and the nature of this type of software is that their is
strong positive reinforcement for the company with the biggest influence, which
could quickly lead to a virtual monopoly. Also, it really doesnÕt matter
whether the software is on the visualisation tools or AI side. Each can have a
predictability associated with it.
It is
interesting to contemplate the effects this widespread automated dealing would
have of the stock market. Black Monday is unlikely to happen again as a result
of computer activity within the City, but it certainly looks like prices will
occasionally become decoupled from actual value, and price swings will become
more significant. Of course, much money can be made on predicting the swings or
getting access to the software-critical information before someone else, so we
may see a need for equalised delivery services. Without equalised delivery,
assuming a continuum of time, those closest to the dealing point will be able
to buy or sell quicker, and since the swings could be extremely rapid, this
would be very important. Dealers would have to have price information
immediately, and of course the finite speed of light does not permit this. If
dealing time is quantified, i.e. share prices are updated at fixed intervals,
the duration of the interval becomes all important, strongly affect the nature
of the market, i.e. whether everyone in that interval pays the same or the
first to act gain.
Also of interest
is the possibility of agents acting on behalf of many people to negotiate
amongst themselves to increase the price of a companyÕs shares, and then sell
on a pre-negotiated time or signal.
Such
automated systems would also be
potentially vulnerable to false information from people or agents hoping to
capitalise on their correlated behaviour.
If I write, and
sell to a company, a piece of AI based share dealing software which learns by
itself how stock market fluctuations arise, and then commits a fraud such as
insider dealing (I might not have explained the law, or the law may have
changed since it was written), who would be liable?
Of course, the
City would eventually react to destructive trends and preventative measures
will hopefully be imposed. Meanwhile, we can expect some problems.
One of the
perceived advantages of the internet is that Ôno-one knows you are a dogÕ. A
single person can have as impressive a presence as a major company or
organisation. The same applies to religions, cults, cultures or any other type
of organisation. Someone browsing the net for insight, revelation, for ideas
for a change of lifestyle, or just simply surfing for interest sake. The
arrival of mass access to the internet has been just in the right time to
capitalise on the arrival of the millennium and renewed interest in religions.
We have just
seen a mass suicide as a result of a cult which grew from such internet
contacts. Cults and new religions would flourish on the net, so we can expect
more of the same, as people are able to reach far more susceptible minds
through the internet than was ever possible before. As the internet grows, more
cults will use the net, more people will visit such sites, and there will be
more ÔconversionsÕ. Also, we may even see a rise in the numbers of cults, as
people pick up ideas from different religions or cultures and invent new
hybrids or mutations which people can fall for.
Interestingly,
we will probably also see the return of many cultures, cults and religions
which were extinct, or dying out. Pagan religions from all over the world may
rise again. We may see the appearance of network warriors, taking their model
from Samurai, with high skill levels and strict codes of behaviour.
Cybernations with large populations and enormous wealth might arise, wielding
their power without fear of retribution.
Of course, there
are no new areas of cyberspace necessary for this. All they need are
conventional web sites, simple stalls in a cybermall. Churches or meeting halls
can be just simple shared spaces. People just stumble across them while
browsing, or actively seek them out by searching. The Usenet offers a means of
cross posting to many newsgroups, which enables in your face advertising, but
this is so frowned upon by users that it is rarely used. The few groups
associated with religious ideas offer the internet equivalent of direct
mailing, reaching a significant percentage of those interested in such things.
Religions are
naturally competitive, and most claim exclusive ownership of the truth.
Although they mainly live peacefully together, there are many hostilities which
often only avoid escalation into violence by geographical separation in the
physical world. However, in cyberspace, geographical boundaries are irrelevant
and people of different views are thrown together. Conflict on grand scales so
far has been avoided by the low penetration of internet access in areas with
religions hostile to the main western religions, Christianity and Judaism.
Islamic countries largely ignore or block the internet so far. However, it is
only a matter of time before conflict moves into this new domain and the flame
wars we see today will escalate into much more serious information warfare.
Since many religions have large numbers of members, in many countries, they
will be among the first Cybernations, nations sized groups who are connected by
networks and by common agreement, rather than by geographical location.
Competing African tribes may be others. Many forms of tribalism may exist in
cyberspace. Ideological groups such as environmentalists or feminists could
form Cybernations too.
The leadership
of Cybernations can communicate instantly with the entire membership, and of
course it is also easier to expel people from a Cybernation than it is to
deport someone from a physical country. This makes them potentially ideal
states, where everyone is in touch, all working together, and everyone obeys
the rules, powerful, yet highly defensible against attack. That is, except for
cyberwars.
Cyberwars will
be quite different from traditional wars. Geography is again irrelevant, and
people on opposite sides may be living in close proximity. However, they will
not be like civil war. Cyberwars are different mainly in their lack of
bloodshed. People, robots and agents will attack each other at a different
level than the physical. They may attack reputation and image, financial
resources, control, access to information, and any other information related
attributes, as well as computing, telecomms and other electronic equipment
belonging to the enemy. That is, just about everything the enemy has which involves
information of any kind or which involves a connection to the network. The
biosphere is left untouched.
Of course,
cyberwar could escalate into physical conflict when real people are
identifiable, or where a geographic location is considered more valuable to one
side than the other, but it is quite possible for there to be no physical
conflict whatsoever, but still a great deal of harm done.
A lot of
activity is under way on development of small robots which resemble insects.
There are also hybrids already such as cockroaches with their wings replaced by
an electronic interface to a remote control system. These can be forced to go
in any direction. Such robots and hybrids are being designed for a variety of
purposes, mostly noble, and early imagined uses include crop pollination, or
guiding swarms of real insects to fields to enable pollination of crops, or
luring real insects to their deaths to control populations.
However, another
obvious use is in industrial espionage, where a robotic insect might transport
miniaturised surveillance equipment into a competitorÕs office and listen or
look in on activities. These may come and go entirely unnoticed by the human
inhabitants or intruder warning systems. Such devices could help a lot in
identifying the physical location of cyberspace opponents.
Another use of
these devices may be in sabotage, and they would work well as part of the
weaponry in a cyberwar, straddling the boundary into physical conflict. In most
computer systems, security systems prevent or control infection by computer
viruses, either by preventing software from entering the machine by blocking
floppy access, or by preventing software which has entered from corrupting
files or erasing hard disks etc. However, an insect sized robot could gain
physical access to the computerÕs internal devices directly. Homing in on the
hard disk interface for example, the drive could be disabled, or erase
instructions fed into it directly. Data could be copied or manipulated, again
without the operator finding out. The whole machine could be sabotaged in the
same way, by shorting out circuits or killing chips off with static shocks.
These devices
are in their infancy at the moment in the civilian world, but development could
be swift and we canÕt be sure how far off these possibilities lie, or even
whether the military already have such capability.
These microbots
are undoubtedly physical space in their current form, but future versions may
straddle the boundary between physical and cyberspace. They may have physical
bodies, but the fact that they can interact directly with electronic devices
offers scope for an extension to their existence. Interfacing to the electronic
domain allows part of their existence to be in cyberspace. They may not need a
physical brain, but have this stored remotely. Their ÔmindÕ may be in
cyberspace, but their body in the physical domain. It as if a cyberspace
creature has been given real world existence and senses.
We must consider
whether this model extends to any robot, and if so, does it make any difference
if the ÔbrainÕ or ÔmindÕ is part of that body or not? I personally think that
it can be either. The robot may be thought of as having its own Ômental spaceÕ
and this could either be isolated and individual in the true sense, or a fully
integral part of cyberspace. Although there is a difference, it may be just
philosophical with no real significance for the rest of us.
However, not all
creatures need to have a physical presence at all. They may know nothing about
the real world, and have no physical manifestation other than bits stored in
memory somewhere, but still be a being with a distinct existence. We may create
pets which live their lives exclusively in cyberspace. Our agents may be
thought of in this way. Some may interact with mental or physical space, via
real world interfaces, but others not. Many such creatures have already been
created. Artificial life researchers world-wide have created and evolved whole
rain forests full of synthetic organisms with complex interactions. Genetic
algorithms rely on creating new creatures or algorithms and killing off the
inferior offspring. It is these evolved organisms, however trivial or
insignificant they are today, which were the first cyberspace creations of our
computers. They made up the first part of cyberspace which did not first have
to map onto a human beingÕs mental space. Viruses were written by people and
came out of their mental space, but these organisms evolved from their
ancestors, they were not designed by humans. The first generation to be born in
cyberspace.
These
cybercreatures inhabit a part of cyberspace which we have no concept of, and no
physical world equivalent. While they were evolved within a set of rules and
constraints, we cannot imagine what they are like. They are just Ômemory
beingsÕ, pure algorithm and data, no substance. Their lives may be (normally)
short and under ultimate human control, but when they have strong artificial
intelligence in the near future, and a degree of autonomy and initiative, they
may need to be considered another life form, Ôlife Jim but not as we know itÕ.
The scenario has been played out in Star Trek many times, but soon we will have
to make the judgements of their rights for real. Should we be able to just
switch them off?
Electronic pets
on the other hand can be as much a part of our mental space than cyberspace.
Programs may simply assemble some graphics on the screen for our benefit, but there
is no substance behind them. The pet may have no deeper existence beyond these
graphics. Others may have this screen presence, but have a life in the
background when they are not being shown on the screen. They may interact with
other pets elsewhere, they may have agent properties, they may breed and evolve
like other cybercreatures.
This highlights
another aspect of cyberspace. Appearance is not necessarily fixed. A creature
may be a pet for one person and one time, an agent another time, and no human
interaction at others. It may have many simultaneous incarnations. Its visual
appearance may change. The creature may have many different roles in just the
same way as a person, but since cyberspace is not limited by physics, these
roles may be much more diverse.
It is clear that
most cyberspace arises from human design, but equally clear that computers can
construct and manipulate areas and objects in cyberspace too. A virtual
building which has been designed by a human is not a computer creation, even if
it has done the rendering, colouring etc. It has still originate in human
mental space. However, if a computer has automatically designed the building or
space from just some general guidelines or an evolved algorithm, then it has
truly originated from the computer.
Usually this
would not be of any great significance. A computer generated car design, or
building design may not be all that different from human designs. It is only
when the computer is able to explore without such rigid constraints that
something radically new may come into existence. A machine which has evolved to
fulfil a task without being restricted by human design rules may be very
different, and opens new areas of cyberspace. When the design is shown to a
human, it might then extend or alter his mental space. This was an important
breakthrough in human knowledge, where the computer became a useful tool for
creativity as well as just number crunching.
Computers may
also be used to make cyberspace mappings of physical space. Real world sensors
such as scanners, video cameras and microphones can map out physical space
automatically and make a representation of it in cyberspace either in real or
altered time, retaining or modifying the real world data as required. The
automation of this task is important, as it is very time consuming indeed to
enter all the data about even a single object manually.
However, most
computer generated cyberspace is still primitive. There are physical mappings,
entirely synthetic computer generated worlds and synthetically evolved
cybercreatures, but these all relate strongly to physical space models. What is
and will remain more difficult is to leave behind physical space concepts
totally and to move into genuinely new areas.