Printed
with permission from TCI
Management Consultants. A group of senior-level management
consultants, offering strategic planning and marketing services
to a wide range of public and private sector clients.
What
Will Be How the World of New Information Will Change
Our Lives
by Michael L. Dertouzos
HarperCollins, New York, 1997
ISBN 0-06-251479-2
Michael Dertouzos is the Director of the Laboratory for
Computer Science at MIT, and thus reasonably well qualified
to predict where computer technology will be taking us in
the future. His book discusses technological changes that
are occurring now and that are on the horizon, and shows
how they will impact us on a day-to-day basis.
This
book has three parts: Shaping the Future, which explains
the new technologies so that readers can judge unfolding
events for themselves; How Your Life Will Change, which
imagines how and justifies why our lives will be recast;
and Reuniting Technology and Humanity, which assesses the
impact of these changes on our society and our humanity.
(p.xv)
Central
to Dertouzous' vision is the concept of the Information
Marketplace, which he defines as the "...collection
of people, computers, communications, software and services
that will be engaged in the intraorganizational and interpersonal
information transactions of the future. These transactions
will involve the processing and communication of information
under the same economic motives that drive today's traditional
marketplace for material goods and services." (p.10)
This
Information Marketplace will be made possible by a communications
infrastructure that will be built by the telecommunications
and software industries. The Information Marketplace and
the infrastructure upon which it is based exist today in
an embryonic form, but are not yet at the state where the
are totally flexible and user friendly. This is in contrast
to other infrastructures such as the electrical grid or
the highway network, where anybody can use them very easily,
they are very widely distributed, and they are very inexpensive
to use. Dertouzous sees that in the future the communications
infrastructure will be the same way very easy to use
(computers will respond to voice commands, for example,
and be able to interpret requests for information or services
easily), ubiquitously available to everyone, and totally
incorporated into our daily lives.
The
first part of the book identifies new technologies and products
that will emerge. Some of the more significant and interesting
of these that he discusses are:
- virtual
reality, and other 'augmented interfaces', with applications
for learning (e.g. simulators) and entertainment
- haptic
interfaces, which combine manipulation with touch sensing,
and will make virtual reality experiences even more lifelike
the applications range from the erotic and sensual
(use your imagination) to devices to enhance the abilities
of the physically challenged, and cover most things in between
- avatars,
which are electronic 'personalities' that individuals will
create to represent themselves in the Information Marketplace
(probably having different avatars for different roles that
an individual may play: businessman, game player, lover,
etc.)
- Guardian
Angels, which would be data bases on the health-care history
of a given patient, and which would accompany that person
throughout their life its capabilities (in addition
to furnishing doctors and medical personnel with a complete
medical record) could include an ability to recommend the
kinds of drugs and treatment that might benefit an individual
- a
whole range of automation tools, using voice recognition
software (which will greatly expand the accessibility of
the infrastructure, bringing it into the reach of just about
everyone)
- continuing
reliance on e-mail as a major shared communications tool
(albeit with better controls for info-junk and offensive
mail)
- a
range of products to enable groupwork and telework (akin
to Lotus Notes, these will facilitate a team of individuals
inputting to a project)
- a
range of tools for finding and organizing information
called hyperfinders by Dertouzos, these will search through
the Information Marketplace for data that meets the user¹s
specifications (likely dictated through voice recognition
procedures)
- new
theories, systems and products to ensure computer security
The
second part of the book discusses how the emerging Information
Marketplace will affect our lives in six areas, which are:
1. Daily
Life
2. Pleasure
3. Health
4. Learning
5. Business
and Organizations, and
6. Government
He makes extensive use of little vignettes in illustrating
how the Information Marketplace and the communications infrastructure
will influence our lives in each of these areas. The predictions
he makes are basically examples of the application of the
kinds of tools that he has discussed in the first part of
the book (the use of 'Guardian Angels' by the health care
system, for example).
The third section is devoted to an overview of what Dertouzos
sees as the major changes that the Information Marketplace
will bring to humanity. Here he introduces two new concepts:
that of electronic bulldozers and electronic proximity.
'Electronic bulldozers' refers to the tremendous power of
computers to do massive work in finding, organizing and
presenting data and information to individuals; this ability
to assemble huge amounts of information is unprecedented
in human history. A companion notion is that of 'electronic
proximity' communications technologies will enable
us to break free of purely geographical boundaries in interacting
with people, and which will bring us into contact with potentially
hundreds of millions of people across the planet. Yet just
because we will have these capabilities does not mean we
will be able to handle them appropriately; human beings
are, after all, still limited by our mental abilities to
process data and to manage relationships with people. Thus
the challenges will be how to educate individuals to maximize
the potential of the Information Marketplace with care and
reason, and not to become overwhelmed. He ends this third
section with a vision of how the availablility of information
in this manner may help to bridge the traditional gap between
the arts and the sciences, where both communities see the
value in the other.
Despite
being written by one of the leading visionaries behind this
emerging Information Marketplace, What Will Be is a relatively
dry and uninspiring book. There's not much in it that we
haven't heard before. Dertouzos does present his information
and predictions in an interesting way (through the use of
vignettes), but even this device gets stale after repeated
use. However, the way he says it in no way should diminish
the importance (and fundamental correctness) of what he
is saying.
The
above summary has been provided to you compliments of TCI
Management Consultants
