From the Internet to AO

We are currently experiencing a convergence of technologies and paradigms:

• In the Information Age, we added digital information to products and services; we are now in an era characterized by adding information to information (metadata), and this will eventually allow software to “understand” the semantic meaning of unstructured data.
• Network architectures will soon be able to move terabits over a massive network.
  
• Internet Protocols will replace proprietary and analog systems.
  
• The problems associated with table updates, domain server names and addressing will be resolved.
  
• The problems associated with PC obsolescence: file storage, RAM, disk space, and legacy applications, will all but disappear.
  
• The value of any device will be its ability to access the network.
  

The consequences are that the computer will become ubiquitous as it becomes part of any device that can access this new 'datasphere' from anywhere that a connection can be made. This datasphere and the many new devices communicating with it will allow the vast majority of humans, even the disenfranchised billions at the bottom in today’s world, to acquire a new level of information sharing ability, reshaping the human to human and human to machine experience.

In the near future, you will have the option to interact with the datasphere using voice commands (via a Linguistic User Interface) or even through a direct neural connection. Intelligent systems will “understand” the context of a question or query, and be able to respond via a 'persona' that can understand the context of the question. These personas will be able to create the appropriate links to depth and detail, cross-references, and links to other information of potential interest, or to human contacts.

You will interact with a robots and personas to answer to a question, make a decision, commit to action, or carry out a procedure. Through the datasphere, you will buy or order a products and services directly from the manufacturer; middle-persons will not be required. Electronic funds transfers will occur seamlessly, in real-time.

The always-on network will also mean always-with-you. For most of us the pace of work will quicken as response times fall. A network of intelligent agents may even begin to compete with their human counterparts.

As the datasphere takes shape, it will be characterized by multi-sensory information in real time - video, audio, and data, that is totally dynamic and in three-D. In fact, high-resolution flat-panel displays of all sizes from hand-held to huge screens are already appearing. We will have the ability to make the display information conform to the parameters of our viewing device, and other personal viewing preferences.

The flow and function of information and interaction within a the datasphere will become more intuitive as better user interfaces emerge. The degrees of freedom to interact with software agents and personas will reduce the need to use complex applications with pre-determined functionality.

In the next few years, a television viewer will be able to interact with, or change the content of a broadcast through a concurrent Web site, or take part in an interactive simulcast. Viewing a movie, “broadcast,” or a streaming media event will be equally enjoyable on either a TV or a computer. The experience will not be distinguishable. In fact TV as we know it will soon become part of the internet using a 'dot-TV' extension.

Soon you will be able to open and use a software application, listen to music, watch a video, or read a book, all through the datasphere, and simply makes a micro-payment for use of intellectual property.


The Autonomous Observer Network

Autonomous Observer (AO) is the artificial intelligence life form that will emerge from the “datasphere.” AO will be the software construct that manages billions of business rules, knowledge bases, databases, laws, social networks, distributed (software) systems, agents, and robots, products and parts, meetings and appointments and the entire digital world. The Internet will begin to act as a coherent, cognitive network. Whereas human intelligence provides the vast majority of today’s Internet, AO will coordinate the machine intelligence that will enhance it.

AO will allow a global society to survive and thrive, integrating the technologies that will continue to grow exponentially. AO will, in real-time, ensure system functionality, but also the privacy, impartiality, fairness, and attention to circumstance for billions of people.

To begin building AO, we must engineer business rules to describe complex processes. Documenting business processes and the organization’s intellectual capital will be a key component to codifying both context and semantics. Eventually, the software will become sophisticated enough to begin building its own rules and software based on the probability of various outcomes. Perhaps this will be the beginning of Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity.

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