“The editor’s function is in my home.” With unlimited information available, computers would select what you need, based on preset parameters, by sorting through invisible identifying codes embedded in information. “Five to 10 years from now the material you’re writing will be written for machines, not people … The way stories are written has to include information about the stories.”
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article he wrote for Editor & Publisher, George Garneau reports on “The Future of Print Journalism in the Digital Age,” a Cambridge, Mass., conference held in May and sponsored by Computer Sciences Corp. He writes:”Nicholas Negroponte, professor of media technology and director of the MIT Media Lab, said the program would more aptly be titled ‘The Future of Journalism,’ because, as he noted, ‘Everything is going digital.’ … As computer networks such as the Internet bring to home computer users hundreds of newspapers, magazines and books, plus international computer bulletin boards and online catalogues for home shopping, people can choose whatever information they want, bypassing the editor and publisher of the traditional publishing model. In the Internet model, ‘The editor’s function is in my home,’ Negroponte said, and information can come from the New York Times or other information vendors. With unlimited information available, computers would select what you need, based on preset parameters, by sorting through invisible identifying codes embedded in information. ‘Five to 10 years from now,’ Negroponte told a room full of scribbling journalists, ‘the material you’re writing will be written for machines, not people … The way stories are written has to include information about the stories.’ With computing and communication capabilities accelerating, he predicted, ‘that publishing model is going to collide with the Internet model’ within five years.”
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: May 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Journalism/Media
Name of publication: Editor & Publisher
Title, headline, chapter name: Techies Meet with Journalists
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?Did=000000000013903&Fmt=3&Deli=1&Mtd=1&Idx=6&Sid=2&RQT=309
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney