CYBERSPACE: FOR THE COMMON MAN -I

The conversation between David Bowman and HAL, the legendary computer, is one of the most critical scenes in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, released in the late sixties. Those who saw the movie were spellbound by the film’s special effects and a talking computer! It was a fantasy thirty years ago when PCs were far away in the future, much less a talking computer!

But then, human ingenuity has proved that nothing is impossible. Three decades later, we have speech recognition software and computer-synthesized voice, which enables us to re-enact the HAL 9000 — David Bowman encounter in every home computer! Inventions and discoveries, accidental some of them might have been, would not have been possible but for imagination and vision on the part of humanity.

William Gibson coined the word Cyberspace in his novel Neuromancer. Neuromancer is a far-reaching artificial intelligence that controls the protagonist of the story. Neuromancer conveys an essential message that technology is powerful and can control society without producing positive benefits.

By a strange coincidence, Neuromancer was published in 1984, the setting of the Orwellian classic 1984—the novel centres around Winston Smith, a minor party functionary in one of the three warring States. Published in 1949, Orwell’s 194 deeply impacted the readers because it highlighted the dangers of totalitarianism. The dangers portrayed by Orwell may be exaggerated. However, with the evolution of technology like Clipper Chip, Capstone and Carnivore, if sufficient safeguards are not devised, the privacy of individuals is likely to be invaded by State agencies.

Fantasy and fiction are set to become a reality with the advent of the Internet and started as a US defence project in 1973 as a research program to devise interconnecting networks of various kinds to survive a nuclear attack that may destroy the monolithic central communication command in the early part of any war. It was made available in 1983 to select users.

Three technologies made the Internet possible.

1. First was packet switching, which made the transmission of information possible through the Internet.
2. The second was developing a set of protocols known as TCP/IP, which enabled computers to exchange information regardless of their make, origin, or operating system.
3. The third was the development of client-server technology, which allows a computer to access and utilize services and programs in another computer.

The Internet Protocol address consists of 4 numbers between 1 and 255, separated by periods. These are unique numbers which identify each computer on the Internet. Since it is difficult for human memory to remember large digit numbers, domain names were resorted to masking the numbers, making it human-friendly to remember and key into the computer to log on.

Internet then is like bye lanes leading to lanes, which lead to streets, roads, and highways sprawling across the globe. The Internet is connected through a series of computers, each with a different role at every level. Had technology stopped with this, perhaps the Internet would have, at best, been another improved means of communication over Teletext or fax. However, the invention of hypertext markup language by Tim Berners-Lee, who worked at CERN Geneva and was popularly known as HTML, dramatically altered the scenario. His hypertext link is an electronic embedded address that points to another Internet location on the Internet. To jump to that location, all a user has to do is click on the hyperlink, and automatically, he is taken to that site by the browser. A Markup language is a computer language that describes how a page should be formatted. A web page also contains HTML Tags that describe how the text should be formatted when the browser displays it on the screen.

Initially, the web consisted only of text. Still, soon, graphics took over with browsers like Mosaic, Netscape Navigator, and Internet Explorer, adding sound, graphics, and other multimedia content to web pages. With that, Cyberspace has blossomed into a medium of its own. The implications of this were not difficult to grasp. The prospect of sending file messages across the continents with lightning speed and at a negligible cost was very appealing to most of us. It was only a question before the entertainment industry and commerce would migrate to Cyberspace. That happened sooner t, resulting in a convergence of technologies leading to a blurring of the distinctions between broadcasting, the Internet, and mobile computing.

Dream and Reality

Cyberspace is the realization of the dreams and visions of many. Creativity always comes from women. One of the inspiring personalities behind Babbage’s analytical engine, which is the precursor of the modern computer, is Lady Ada Lovelace Byron. She predicted in 1863 that machines would compose complex music, produce graphics, and be used for practical and scientific purposes. That prediction has come true. Tim Berners-Lee wanted a Common information space where people could communicate and share information freely. The World Wide Web is the realization of that dream. He conceived Cyberspace as an abstract place where a knowledge-based economy happens. He also wanted the web to become a realistic mirror of how we played, worked, and socialized. He has predicted that the web will open up new business opportunities, turn bureaucracy over to machines, and let people get on with creativity. It will help people to work together more effectively, remove misunderstandings and bring about peace and harmony on a global scale. But according to him, we can only do these things if we learn to use it wisely and think carefully about the technology and the laws we make or change around it.

Technology has constantly threatened to destroy Man if not appropriately controlled. Neuromancer describes the evils a society must suffer if it willingly allows itself to be directly controlled by technology. 2001: A Space Odyssey also conveys the same message. In 2001, HAL was, in fact, the ultimate tool; he is so advanced that in conversation, it is practically impossible to tell that he is a machine and not a human being. The similarity of man to his tools has peaked in HAL, a device similar to a man. But, like all tools, HAL proved to be as dangerous as he was helpful. The story’s moral is that if we create incredible technologies, we should not use them for evil and material gain but for improving the lives of humanity. We can do that only if we do not become slaves of technology. Technology is amoral and values neutral. It is for us to use them intelligently and wisely for the benefit of humanity. (PIB)

PIB
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Date: January 10, 2001