The Dark Side of the Information Revolution

�Dark Side� Scenarios

The session moderator led off with a list of potential pessimistic scenarios, taken
mainly from British Telecom planning exercise scenarios of the future with
which he was directly involved. His list of examples included:

� Artificial intelligence causes major social stresses, primarily as jobs are
automated, forcing people to retrain and possibly lose some of their status.

� Increasing societal and individual dependence on computers and
communication systems makes such systems a specific target for attack.

� The increasing complexity of networks leads to more catastrophic failures. It
is probably the case that no one understands the full complexity and
interdependencies of the networks we are currently building.

� Hardware and software become self-replicating, and cause a chain reaction
that is out of control. A recent article by Bill Joy in Wired Magazine has been
widely cited and discussed in this regard.38

� Peer-to-peer (P2P) software and genetic algorithms allow software to evolve
and spread rapidly, again perhaps becoming out of control and no longer
understandable by humans.

www.rand.org...

Those who fear the most that computers will take over the world are those *least likely* to know anything about how to control computers for themselves...

I'm a computer technician...If it seems that a computer is going out of control & won't let me turn it off, I'll just pull the d@mn plug!


Seriously though, statements like that are more indicative of a person's *mentality* rather than an indication of true threat. He merely shows himself to be completely allowing his own fate to be dictated by technology he can't seem to understand.



[Edited on 9-11-2002 by MidnightDStroyer]

I'm not afraid by actual computer.But the next generation could be weird and may be dangerous. I.e quantum computer and so on....Something that I don't like also is the I.A.

Moder computers can be see like " stupids machines " who do only what he ask them to do.

What would you do if you ask something to your computer, and his answer is : No sir, I don't WANT to do it !?

Remove the plug ? well well, why not....But if you have to remove the plug, your computer will be useless...And what if your computer don't let you remove the plug ? Or tell you that he don't care cuz he have his energy from a quantum network and doesn't need any plug anymore ?

We HAVE to control our technology. It's not our technology who have to control us.

And when I see how peoples are disturbed when their mobile phones, pagers or extranet is not working good, or not working anymore, I'm a little bit skeptic about what they'll do the day or their computers will be more intelligent than them.

Think about it !

Originally posted by ultra_phoenix:

"I'm not afraid by actual computer.But the next generation could be weird and may be dangerous. I.e quantum computer and so on....Something that I don't like also is the I.A."

afraid of quantum computing? why? artificial intelligence can be considered a worry. the 'rogue AI' scenario is well documented in science fiction. however, quantum computing is nothing to worry about. my own research has some quantum computing applications.

"Or tell you that he don't care cuz he have his energy from a quantum network and doesn't need any plug anymore ? "

quantum network? what the hell?

- qo.

If I can't unplug the rogue computer, then I'll reprogram it with a large ax...How could it stop me?

Originally posted by quiet one
Originally posted by ultra_phoenix:

quantum network? what the hell?

Scientists found possible to use a quantum network to send data & energy.

Don't ask me more, I'm not a scientist and what I have read about it was in french and I'm not able to translate it correctly.

But if I found it in french, you can find it in english also.

The dark side of the information revolution:

1- People who apply science fiction plots to science reality

2- People who don't understand technology, commenting on technology

3- It's not an "information revolution," it's the "digital revolution"

Originally posted by ultra_phoenix:

"Scientists found possible to use a quantum network to send data & energy.

Don't ask me more, I'm not a scientist and what I have read about it was in french and I'm not able to translate it correctly.

But if I found it in french, you can find it in english also."

if that's all it is then don't worry. the ability to send data over a "quantum network" is just Quantum Communication. its exactly what we do now with electrical signals but using individual photons to encode the message. its impressive, cutting-edge technology but no more of a threat than, say, broadband.

as for the ability to send ~energy~ along a "quantum network", that's essentially the same thing. in fact, its even less impressive as that could be seen to be standard fiber-optic communication. we've been doing it for years.

- qo.

Nope quiet one. The article was speaking about a network who didn't have any " physical " connections, like wires. And it wasn't radio waves also. It was something else, really new & weird.

P.S : don't take me for a clown on this matter. I'm not a scientist, but I was working for a micro-ships company like technician. So, I can do the difference between technical BS and new technology.

well, if you can dig up any technical papers or references i'd appreciate it. i've got access to quite a few physics electronic journals, and i can probably get access to engineering ones if anyone's actually tinkering with the damn things yet.

- qo.

Originally posted by quiet one
well, if you can dig up any technical papers or references i'd appreciate it. i've got access to quite a few physics electronic journals, and i can probably get access to engineering ones if anyone's actually tinkering with the damn things yet.

- qo.

OK.

You ask me yes it is. Imagine a computer that serves us. It automates every process in the daily life of all human being. It controls factorys and nuclear silos. Now imagine that computer being artificially intelligent decides that it doesn't like serving us. Essentially it is a slave and wha happens with slaves as we have seen threwout history is that they rebel. The cause revloutions, they destroy there masters. This computer would just think right i can kill them all so i will. As for pulling the plug, you would not know it had betrayed the human race before its to late! Pulling the plug is the most useless statement ever.Thats my take on it anyway i think everyone here will just laugh at it but everyone is entitiled to there opinion remember that before you start having a go at me.

Ahh crap, I think I know what this "quantum network" is...and if I'm right then it looks like I'm going to need to find another nest egg for retirement.

If I remember correctly you can polarize two particles so that one is the 1 the other the 0 and as you reverse the polarities they both switch, no matter where they are in the universe, I guess a lot like quantum tunneling.

That is the only method of communication I know of that wouldn't use wires blah blah, except for like laser connections

And I'm not even sure if that particle polarity is actually very accurate, there is too much insane stuff with quantum theories that you can't keep track of them all

Such as Quantum Teleportation, and perhaps it was along this line too, they've actually been able to stop light. They've been able to contain light and then "resend" it to where ever they want it to, this in effect is both quantum teleportation and some nifty trickery, the teleportation part comes into the fact that it is not the "light" that they store, but the information of the light.

For instance, if you send a signal using light, and then trapped it in this box,which is litterally what they do using I think xenon or some other gas, the light continues on to where ever it is going.

But the energy and information is also stored in the box, having excited the atoms, so when you want to you can redirect an EXACT copy of what it was you were sending. Nifty no? Well there's my ramblings of insane theories that I have little technical no-how about...hmm what do you think of that Q-O?

And well...maybe that has something to do with this "quantum" network, or maybe it is simply using small lasers

Sincerely,
no signature

Originally posted by FreeMason:

"If I remember correctly you can polarize two particles so that one is the 1 the other the 0 and as you reverse the polarities they both switch, no matter where they are in the universe, I guess a lot like quantum tunneling."

euch ... you're getting into techical pseudo-science. yes, the particle switching is ... well ... at least theorised and demonstrated experimentally on a small scale. however, there is a question of range. i don't think you can actually seperate the two particles very far. all to do with wavefunctions (which i'm working on as i type) and the like. i wouldn't want to say anything more concrete than that.

"That is the only method of communication I know of that wouldn't use wires blah blah, except for like laser connections "

erm, radio?

"Such as Quantum Teleportation, and perhaps it was along this line too, they've actually been able to stop light."

i hate the term 'quantum teleportation'. its a load of crap. as for stopping light, yes sirree, most impressive. bose-einstein condensates and muchos goodness. they're funking little things to play with ...

quite simply there are thousand of possible ideas for this 'quantum network' which is why i asked for technical papers.

- qo.

if anyone is seriously interested in this (and i'm getting there) then get access to IOP's New Physics Journal. their latest issue has several papers relating to quantum networks, including a focus on Quantum Cryptography, QKD (Quantum Key Distribution) and more.

- qo.

I agree with William and the other computer techs on the board -- and will add another point:

People who write science fiction/movies about computers don't know a *thing* about computers. They can turn them on, turn them off, and find the word processor.

I was "computer geek" for a couple of local scifi writers and as far as they knew, their DOS machines could get out of hand and take over the world. And then there was Bruce Sterling and the Cyberpunk gang -- again, not coders, not programmers. They had no notion of what computers were capable of doing.

It's like saying that your office building will develop a mind of its own and take over the world.

Ain't happening.

All of us techs know where the plugs are.

Originally posted by Byrd

All of us techs know where the plugs are.

Until your plug is not inside a Terminator, I'm agree with you.

lets ask another question then. if these scenarios are of worry, what should we do?

- qo.

i know someone that works with a device called the quantum xerroid (qxci)... it is a type of bioresonance machine.
bioresonance was originally created to cure tumors & cancers.

the patient or client would be hooked up to the qxci and it will do a thorough test for any type of diseases or physical injuries by tapping into the person's engery field... and the best part is... it tries to revitalize the body.
no hospital is allowed to use this type of technology, and it has been banned in Canada... but that doesn't matter now because the fda recently filed a lawsuit against them. no one is able to use it for any medical purposes.

more info: www.theqxci.com...

[Edited on 11-16-2002 by echelon]