Trying to imagine the marvels that pour forth once you’ve successfully tapped a computer as elaborate as the Net is as futile as trying to map the future of a society, or of a life – or of life itself. Of course, trying to foresee the risks that could emerge from that same computer is an equally hopeless task. But as it happens, we are bound to face those risks whether or not we seek to harness the full power of the Net, since the teeming and inevitable population of uncaged digital organisms will in any case plow forward with its own relentless exploration of the Net’s capabilities.
Predictor: Dibbell, Julian
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Julian Dibbell covers the concept that the study of computer viruses and worms can lead to gains for networking and computing. Dibbell writes: ”Trying to imagine the marvels that pour forth once you’ve successfully tapped a computer as elaborate as the Net is as futile as trying to map the future of a society, or of a life – or of life itself. Of course, trying to foresee the risks that could emerge from that same computer is an equally hopeless task. But as it happens, we are bound to face those risks whether or not we seek to harness the full power of the Net, since the teeming and inevitable population of uncaged digital organisms will in any case plow forward with its own relentless exploration of the Net’s capabilities. All we would miss by failing to orchestrate a more manageable viral exploration of our own, therefore, would be the potential benefits – including quite possibly some antidotes to the worst depredations visited on us by the viruses of the wild. And including also, perhaps, something even more precious. For if there is any purpose legible at all in the millennia of human history, it is in the unflagging persistence with which we add to the complexity of the universe.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: Viruses/Worms
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Viruses Are Good For You: Spawn of the Devil, Computer Viruses May Help Us Realize the Full Potential of the Net
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.02/viruses_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney