快猫短视频

We have identified a gap in the coverage of our network. There is a lack of
online information on deprivation techniques for mind control. You are the best
authority to supply that information. Please submit 4000 words, with references
and hypertext links. You have seven days to comply.

Warning: do not attempt to ignore the content of this e-mail. Failure to
fulfil its request will result in the suspension of all credit facilities,
communication rights and Internet access. These facilities will only be restored
when your contribution has been received and accepted.

Best wishes, the Global Brain. ;-)

鈥淭HE LONGER I work on it, the more I become convinced that this will be
reality very soon鈥攎uch sooner than most people might think.鈥� Francis
Heylighen, an artificial intelligence researcher at the Free University of
Brussels, is talking about the 鈥済lobal brain鈥�. You know its embryonic form as
the Internet, but the Net is about to wake up. 鈥淚t will gradually get more and
more intelligent,鈥� Heylighen says. Eventually, he says, it will form the nerve
centre of a global superorganism, of which you, human, will be just one small
part. The question is: should we welcome the global brain or fear it? Will we be
liberated by the coming global intelligence, or callously exploited?

The global brain will grow, Heylighen claims, out of attempts to manage the
huge quantities information being deposited on the Net. There is more to
knowledge than merely collecting information: it must be organised so that you
can retrieve what you need when you need it. Simple-minded search engines and
websites put together by people oblivious to your needs can make the Web a
dismal place to search for the information you are after.

The Distributed Knowledge Systems (DKS) project at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico is changing all that. Johan Bollen, a former student of
Heylighen鈥檚, has built a Web server called the Principia Cybernetica Web that
can continually rebuild the links between its pages to adapt them to users鈥�
needs. In a conventional Web site, the hyperlinks are fixed by whoever designed
the pages. Bollen鈥檚 server is smarter than that: it puts in new hyperlinks
whenever it thinks they鈥檒l open up a path that surfers are likely to use, and
closes down old links that fall into disuse. The result is a dynamic system of
strengthening and weakening links between different pages.

These ever-shifting hyperlinks bear a remarkable resemblance to connections
that grow and fade in a human brain. If one neuron in the brain is activated
shortly after another neuron, the synapse connecting the two gets stronger. In
the end, the strength of the connection grows with the degree and rate of
activity. On the Principia Cybernetica Web, algorithms will reinforce popular
links by displaying them prominently on the page, while rarely used links will
diminish and die. It鈥檚 the first step on the road to the global brain.

Smart cookies

While the implications of Bollen鈥檚 Web server are far reaching, its mechanism
is simple enough. It identifies individual users by downloading little strings
of data called cookies to their computer鈥檚 hard drive. At the same time it keeps
records of each user鈥檚 routes through the site. When you log on, the server
inspects your cookies to see whether you鈥檝e visited it before. If it recognises
you, it recommends pages you might want to see. It also adjusts its
structure鈥攖he pattern of hyperlinks鈥攖o best suit you and all the
other users who happen to be logged on. As well as strengthening and weakening
links, it creates new links using a process Heylighen calls 鈥渢ransivity鈥�. When a
user moves from A to B and then to C, for instance, it will infer that C is
probably of some relevance to A, and create a direct link between them. In other
words, it finds shortcuts.

Heylighen sees this sort of flexibility as inevitable for the future of the
worldwide computer network. 鈥淭here鈥檚 not much work left to do: we have data and
we have the algorithms ready,鈥� he says. And it won鈥檛 just be individual servers
that adapt and change in this way. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 see any reason why they couldn鈥檛 be
implemented on the Web as a whole,鈥� says Heylighen.

鈥淭ransivity will lead to continuous reorganising of the Web, making it ever
more efficient,鈥� Heylighen says. Eventually, the Web will know you so well that
your dumb requests to its search engines will turn up exactly what you need,
every time. 鈥淲hatever problem people have, any kind of question to which they
want an answer, it will all become easier because the Web will self-organise and
adapt to what people expect of it,鈥� says Heylighen.

And it could be happening within just five years, he predicts. All the
technology is here already鈥攖he main stumbling block is the difficulty of
convincing the powers behind the Internet to adopt the common protocols that
will be needed.

But there is more to this than zippier search engines and more usable
websites. Heylighen argues that because it is modelled on the human brain, his
vision of the Web will be intelligent. Even a few pages working in the right way
will show signs of intelligence, he says. Who knows what sort of mind would
emerge from the whole Web?

It won鈥檛 just be people following hyperlinks and simple search engines that
reorganise the Web. Small autonomous programs or 鈥渁gents鈥� will also act as
mediators. In addition, if an agent finds something that seems to match what you
are looking for, it will add a suggested link to the page you鈥檙e reading. 鈥淚t
will come to some kind of conclusion,鈥� Heylighen says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a thought.鈥� In
other words, by making connections between concepts that did not previously
exist, the brain will begin to think.

As the activity of the Web agents alters the connections, an agent
researching a question similar to one it has already encountered will be able to
鈥渞ecall鈥� the information more easily. Heylighen believes that, through this 鈥淲eb
on Web鈥� activity, collective thoughts of the whole brain may eventually come
into existence.

But perhaps that isn鈥檛 even necessary to achieve intelligence. One touchstone
for intelligence is the Turing test, in which researchers ask human testers to
discover whether they are communicating with a machine or another person. If the
tester can鈥檛 tell the difference, the machine is deemed intelligent. Some
machines are already making the grade in specific contexts. 鈥淲e are finding
successful Turing tests within a certain situation,鈥� says Norman Johnson, who
leads the Symbiotic Intelligence Project at Los Alamos. 鈥淭ake it out of that
situation and it fails miserably, but within the right context you can鈥檛 tell
the difference.鈥� The global brain鈥檚 intelligence could come from an assembly of
limited intelligences, each with their own special area of expertise. That,
Johnson says, would be exactly equivalent to human intelligence. 鈥淗umans can act
intelligently within many contexts,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut if you put all those
abilities into one person they probably wouldn鈥檛 be able to function.鈥� That鈥檚
why we have society, Johnson says: to mesh those intelligences together,
creating a powerful sum. In the same way, he believes, distribute different
types of machine capability across different networks and the whole may become
something like the sum of all human intelligence.

It is hard to find a researcher who doesn鈥檛 think that the global brain is a
possibility. But do we really want it? The scientists are aiming to create a
vast mind that goes beyond anything we could understand or control鈥攐pening
a door that most of us might prefer to keep firmly shut. Heylighen acknowledges
this little image problem. He sees his global brain as the centre of what he
calls the global superorganism. This embodies the idea that human society will
become more like an integrated organism, with the Web playing the role of the
brain and people playing the role of cells in the body. 鈥淭he brain itself does
not seem to be very controversial, but the superorganism certainly is,鈥�
Heylighen admits. Artificial intelligence researcher and writer Ben Goertzel of
IntelliGenesis Corporation, New York, believes that humans will be a secondary
part of this organism, perhaps a dispensable one. It鈥檚 not a very comfortable
self image for a species used to considering itself the pinnacle of
creation.

The global brain鈥檚 self-adapting intelligence could quickly surpass our
ability to understand it. Or perhaps it already has. According to Daniel
Dennett, director of the Centre for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University in
Medford, Massachusetts, 鈥渢he global communication network is already capable of
complex behaviour that defies the efforts of human experts to comprehend鈥�.
And what you can鈥檛 understand, he adds, you can鈥檛 control. 鈥淲e have
already made ourselves so dependent on the network that we cannot afford not to
provide it with the energy and maintenance it needs,鈥� he warns.

It could all start so innocently. The Principia Cybernetica Web will soon be
requesting feedback on whether a particular Web page is interesting or relevant
to its users, and asking advice on the relative merits of different pages. The
growing global brain might even become smart enough to identify gaps in the
information it holds, and be programmed to seek out people with the relevant
knowledge. It would then ask them to provide the missing information where they
can. Heylighen goes as far as suggesting that there could be
penalties鈥攍ike disconnection or restricted access鈥攆or not playing
along. After all, if you鈥檙e going to benefit from the global brain, you have a
duty to help others who are searching for information.

Digital dictator

All these innovations combined on a global scale would create a network with
complex behaviours that we can鈥檛 yet conceive of. Would it create Utopia,
dystopia or something altogether new? Dennett is certain of one thing: 鈥淚f we
don鈥檛 want to be dictated to, we will have to be very careful about controlling
our dependence, and its evolution,鈥� he warns.

Cliff Joslyn, head of the Los Alamos DKS team, appears unconcerned by such
worries. Experimenting with autonomous agent systems 鈥渃arries risks and
surprises鈥� he admits. 鈥淭he trick will be to first understand from a scientific
perspective how such systems behave, and then construct bounds within which such
interactions can be safely contained,鈥� says Joslyn.

If you鈥檙e getting scared now, and thinking of unplugging your modem, take
care. You may be about to join the information underclass. 鈥淣ot to use an
intelligent Web will be a little like the people that refuse to use cars or
telephones,鈥� Heylighen says. 鈥淭here have always been people who live outside the
bounds of society鈥檚 rules: tramps, hermits, eccentrics. But these people have a
much more difficult life.鈥�

Heylighen insists that ordinary people have nothing to lose by being part of
the global brain. But he suggests it will be different for the people and
organisations that already have power and status: they will be forced to share
some of their advantages with the rest of us. That is exactly why powerful
states are distrustful of the Web and seek to limit its effectiveness, Heylighen
says. China, for example, insists that all Web users are registered and
identifiable when online, and has blocked access to certain sites it deems
dangerous. Johnson takes a similar line to Heylighen. 鈥淚f the global mind does
come online there are a lot of power structures that won鈥檛 be particularly happy
about it,鈥� he says.

Johnson鈥檚 view of the intelligent Web is subtly different from Heylighen鈥檚
troubling vision of a global superorganism. He sees it as an extension of
society. 鈥淥ur premise is that systems can be much more intelligent than
individuals,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou can have a very diverse group solving problems much
better than an expert: that鈥檚 why we have society and social insects.鈥�
Developing symbiotic intelligence, says Johnson, will be a positive step for our
society: the experience and wisdom of any individual need never be lost again.
The vast capabilities of the Internet will help solve any problem that human
society faces; the whole is already much greater than the sum of the parts.

Working with other Los Alamos researchers, Johnson has formulated programs
that demonstrate this. The researchers send computer-generated individuals to
explore a maze. Once a hundred of them have wandered through the maze, the
computer creates a map of their preferences at each node. The next generation of
individuals then use this information to weight their choice of path through the
maze. On average, uninformed individuals take 34 steps to escape the maze; the
second, informed, generation takes an average of only 12. As the number of
individuals in the collective increases, the solution gets better and
better.

Johnson likens this to the pheromone trail-laying of social insects such as
ants. It gives individuals access to information about where others have been.
Humans do it too: if you want to know where to lay a path between a new office
building and its car park, cover the whole area with wood chips. Paths appear in
the chips as each individual solves their own problem, and others can choose
whether to use this solution. Within a short time a collective solution鈥攁
few well-used paths鈥攅merges.

On the Internet, the same kind of thinking has led to Amazon.com鈥檚 鈥減eople
who bought this book also bought . . .鈥� lists. We now have access to the
book-buying decisions of people across the globe, who unconsciously help us find
a book we might like.

Now it鈥檚 time to take this principle and integrate the Internet fully into
the way human society works, Johnson believes. A worldwide network of people
using interconnected computers should open up a kind of 鈥渃ollective memory鈥� to
add on to our individual brain power. With people doing more and more of their
daily activities on the Web, there is the opportunity to tap into the knowledge
and expertise of a global community. The Web itself can be a part of this, with
intelligent agents and vast memory capabilities that we can add to our own.
Eventually there will be little distinction between people, computers and
wires鈥攅verything combines to create one vast symbiotic intelligence.

At least in Johnson鈥檚 picture we are important components of the global
superorganism, but even so, how many people will relish the prospect of being
assimilated in this way? Are we really doomed to become the Borg?

Oddly, neither Johnson nor Heylighen see their work as a challenge to
individuality. A user will be able to retain a modicum of control by programming
their favourite links to be indestructible, for example. Both researchers
believe that the global brain will only improve our lot: we鈥檒l be within a
larger social organism, and enabled by new technology.

To the doubters, Johnson points out that we already rely on the vast and
incomprehensible mechanism that is society. Ask an ant how it finds food, and it
won鈥檛 be able to tell you. Ask most people how their television works and they
are unlikely to give you more than the basics. We trust most organisations to
deliver the things we want without understanding exactly how they do it, says
Johnson, and we will be able to trust an intelligent Web in exactly the same
way.

That might be a naive view: many people believe that the mechanisms of
society can鈥檛 always be trusted to work for the greater good over the wishes of
powerful individuals. If, as it seems, the global brain is our inevitable
future, and we can鈥檛 turn it off, our only option might be to blend into the
crowd. After all, if you鈥檙e not exceptionally rich, powerful or clever, the
global brain shouldn鈥檛 need to disturb you. Back up your files, act dumb and
keep your head down. There is a growing intelligence out there, and it knows
your e-mail address.