The prediction, in brief:

While the highway metaphor illuminates the strengths of an interconnected society, it also suggests possible problems. Writing in the computer journal Communications of the ACM, Peter G. Neumann notes some of them: traffic jams, road kill, drunken drivers, and car jackers, as well as drag races, joy riders, toll bridges and crashes.

Predictor: Neumann, Peter G.

Prediction, in context:

In the 1995 book “The Information Revolution,” a collection of articles and essays, editor Donald Altschiller writes:”Although Vice President Gore is often credited with coining the term ‘information highway,’ the phrase was first used by author Ralph Lee Smith. In his 1972 book, ‘The Wired Nation,’ he described the federal subsidies for interstate highways and suggested a ‘similar national commitment for an electronic highway system to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas.’ The result of such a commitment was the much-heralded Internet. Its predecessor was initiated in August 1968 when the U.S. Department of Defense required a network to connect its widely dispersed computers. A quarter of a century later the Internet has become a web of more than 40,000 networks linking an estimated 30 million users in more than 100 countries. While the highway metaphor illuminates the strengths of an interconnected society, it also suggests possible problems. Writing in the computer journal Communications of the ACM, Peter G. Neumann notes some of them: traffic jams, road kill, drunken drivers, and car jackers, as well as drag races, joy riders, toll bridges and crashes. Furthermore, a 1995 Newsweek poll showed that 23 percent of the respondents believed that computers would help stratify society into those who could afford developing technologies and those of lesser means. Nonetheless, most Americans feel that computers serve important functions in their lives. In the same poll, 73 percent of workers believed computers improve their working conditions, and 45 percent of those surveyed used a computer almost every day.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: The Information Revolution (book)

Title, headline, chapter name: Preface

Quote Type: Paraphrase

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 7, 8

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne