The prediction, in brief:

New information technologies can easily be turned to malign ends. Through advertising and other means, they have been used not only to exploit our hearts’ desires but to manufacture new ones. Along with the specter of greater government control over citizens’ lives that becomes possible with the new information technologies, this ‘commodification of desire’ must be considered one of the darker prospects of the NII … With the NII, it seems likely that the machines will grow stronger, as will marketers and governments.

Predictor: Maddox, Tom

Prediction, in context:

The 1995 book “The Information Revolution,” edited by Donald Altschiller, carries a reprint of the summer 1994, Wilson Quarterly article “The Cultural Consequences of the Information Superhighway” by Tom Maddox. Maddox raises cultural and social issues involved with the Internet. He writes:”The history of electronic media, especially television, is a powerful reminder that new information technologies can easily be turned to malign ends. Through advertising and other means, they have been used not only to exploit our hearts’ desires but to manufacture new ones. Along with the specter of greater government control over citizens’ lives that becomes possible with the new information technologies, this ‘commodification of desire’ must be considered one of the darker prospects of the NII. Add to it the inescapable unease one feels in contemplating a wired world, an almost subliminal fear of the accession of what historian Manuel de Landa, in “War in the Age of Intelligent Machines” (1991), calls the ‘machinic phylum’ – the set of things that operate according to the machine’s laws of rationality and order. To put these fears more succinctly, with the NII, it seems likely that the machines will grow stronger, as will marketers and governments.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Community/Culture

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: The Information Revolution (book)

Title, headline, chapter name: The Cultural Consequences of the Information Superhighway

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 195

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