Privacy may be more attainable in the world of bits than in the world of atoms. But we can also lose it faster if we don’t pay attention.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Thomas A. Bass interviews MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte on the 10th anniversary of the Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he heads up an effort that spends $25 million a year “engineering the merger of newspapers, television, learning and computers.” Bass asks “Is it an overreaction to fear loss of privacy on the Net?” and he says Negroponte replies: ”Not at all. As far as I’m concerned, this is the dark side of the Net, which we need to watch most closely. Privacy may be more attainable in the world of bits than in the world of atoms. But we can also lose it faster if we don’t pay attention.”
Biography:Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and a popular speaker and writer about technologies of the future, wrote one of the 1990s’ best-selling books about the new future of communications, “Being Digital.” (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Privacy/Surveillance
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Being Nicholas: Nicholas Negroponte is the Most Wired Man We Know (and That’s Saying Something)
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.11/nicholas_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney