Innovación pendiente: "It's time to think about the Internet instead of just letting it happen"

Es la preocupación de David Gelernter en su escrito, aquí. Es un escrito, visionario si se quiere, acerca de la ruta que debería seguir el desarrollo de Internet: prescribe así lo que esta importante tecnología, que nos viene acompañañdo desde hace unos lustros, tendría pendiente por realizar (o sea lo que sus arquitectos e ingenieros tendrían pendiente por realizar con ella para el resto de nosotros)

¿Hasta qué punto cabe re-orientar el desarrollo de una tecnología? ¿Hasta qué punto la tecnología misma, si o no, trae inscrito desde sus comienzos su futuro desenvolvimiento, y arquitectos e ingenieros en lo que hacen sólo cumplen con sus "designios"? Por ejemplo no es tan difícil pensar que en la realización del telégrafo ya estaba "designado" - para algún día - el surgimiento de la telefonía móvil; lo que si no estaba previsto en cambio era el terminal móvil multipropósito y la "nube" tras él...

Mr. Gelernter en todo caso no escatima precisiones en sus prescripciones acerca de la innovación pendiente:

Extracto 1:

"5. Consider Web search, for example. Modern search engines combine the functions of libraries and business directories on a global scale, in a flash: a lightning bolt of brilliant engineering. These search engines are indispensable — just like word processors. But they solve an easy problem. It has always been harder to find the right person than the right fact. Human experience and expertise are the most valuable resources on the Internet — if we could find them. Using a search engine to find (or be found by) the right person is a harder, more subtle problem than ordinary Internet search. Small pieces of the problem have been attacked; in the future we will solve this hard problem in general, instead of being satisfied with windfalls and the lowest-hanging fruit on the technology tree."

Extracto 2:

"8. Practical business: who will win the tug of war between private machines and the Cloud? Will you store your personal information on your own personal machines, or on nameless servers far away in the Cloud, or both? Answer: in the Cloud. The Cloud (or the Internet Operating System, IOS — "Cloud 1.0") will take charge of your personal machines. It will move the information you need at any given moment onto your own cellphone, laptop, pad, pod — but will always keep charge of the master copy. When you make changes to any document, the changes will be reflected immediately in the Cloud. Many parts of this service are available already.

9. Because your information will live in the Cloud and only make quick visits to your personal machines, all your machines will share the same information automatically; a new machine will be useful the instant you switch it on; a lost or stolen machine won't matter — the information it contains will evaporate instantly. The Cloud will take care that your information is safely encrypted, distributed and secure."

Entre lo más novedoso pensado por Mr. Gelernter está el concepto de "STREAM", el flujo de "mensajes", ("mensajes" en el sentido fuerte de la Teoría de la Información de Claude Shannon, ver aquí), mensajes que apropiadamente almacenados primero y organizados después, según los momentos tempóreos de su creación, darían cuenta finalmente de una especie de "historia"; historia de una parte del acontecer de sus emisores y receptores, historia de otra, de un acontecer específico cualquiera (como con las keywords en una búsqueda hoy), de mi interés en un momento dado - en los dos sentidos que caben para la expresión "momento dado" :-) -

Extracto 3:

"16. Your own information — all your communications, documents, photos, videos — including "cross network" information — phone calls, voice messages, text messages — will be stored in a lifestream in the Cloud.

17. There is no clear way to blend two standard websites together, but it's obvious how to blend two streams. You simply shuffle them together like two decks of cards, maintaining time-order — putting the earlier document first. Blending is important because we must be able to add and subtract in the Cybersphere. We add streams together by blending them. Because it's easy to blend any group of streams, it's easy to integrate stream-structured sites so we can treat the group as a unit, not as many separate points of activity; and integration is important to solving the information overload problem. We subtract streams by searching or focusing. Searching a stream for "snow" means that I subtract every stream-element that doesn't deal with snow. Subtracting the "not snow" stream from the mainstream yields a "snow" stream. Blending streams and searching them are the addition and subtraction of the new Cybersphere.

18. Nearly all flowing, changing information on the Internet will move through streams. You will be able to gather and blend together all the streams that interest you. Streams of world news or news about your friends, streams that describe prices or auctions or new findings in any field, or traffic, weather, markets — they will all be gathered and blended into one stream. Then your own personal lifestream will be added. The result is your mainstream: different from all others; a fast-moving river of all the digital information you care about."

Viabilidad o dificultad tecnológica y utilidad o no aparte, estos STREAMS de Mr. Gelernter anuncian (como el cine en su momento) una re-creación del mundo ante nuestros ojos y oídos, es decir, que el mundo ya no sólo es lo que de primera mano nos damos en virtud de nuestro directo existir, sino además cualquier "ficción" posible indirecta que ahora la máquina-nube del mix&match&mash-up
c o n v e n i e n t e m e n t e
nos suministre (hace unos días estaba pensando de forma similar ¡qué ¿casualidad?!)

Un toque de ¿ironía? de Mr. Gelernter hacia el final:

"26. The Internet is no topic like cellphones or videogame platforms or artificial intelligence; it's a topic like education. It's that big. Therefore beware: to become a teacher, master some topic you can teach; don't go to Education School and master nothing. To work on the Internet, master some part of the Internet: engineering, software, computer science, communication theory; economics or business; literature or design. Don't go to Internet School and master nothing. There are brilliant, admirable people at Internet institutes. But if these institutes have the same effect on the Internet that education schools have had on education, they will be a disaster."

Finalmente, el párrafo que mejor resume la parte más optimista en la visión de Mr. Gelernter:

"31. But — the Internet could be the most powerful device ever invented for understanding the past, and the texture of time. Once we understand the inherent bias in an instrument, we can correct it. The Internet has a large bias in favor of now. Using lifestreams (which arrange information in time instead of space), historians can assemble, argue about and gradually refine timelines of historical fact. Such timelines are not history, but they are the raw material of history. They will be bitterly debated and disputed — but it will be easy to compare two different versions (and the evidence that supports them) side-by-side. Images, videos and text will accumulate around such streams. Eventually they will become shared cultural monuments in the Cybersphere."