HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018322.jpg
Extracted Text (OCR)
desperation in men like Trichet. I’m pretty sure we'll see versions of this same sort
of crisis in many other areas.
More complexity produces more interaction, as you would expect. More pieces of a
system rushing and touching and changing each other in a perpetual and
accelerating dance. That process pushes, in turn, still more emergence. The easier it
is to combine things the more creativity is tickled into life.125 You hear an amazing
mashup of the Bee Gees and Michael Jackson; you download the tools to make your
own. In every aspect of the connected world, growing complexity breeds emergence.
This is true in finance, in terrorism, in bio-development. Some intellectuals and
businessmen worry that we've arrived at the “End of Innovation” now. But this is
unlikely. Connected systems, almost as if they have a mind of their own, create and
surprise. The complex meshes of connection growing around us now, in a sense, are
like a rainforest. They hold and breed and support a range of species native to the
connected climate - things that couldn’t survive elsewhere, that were unimaginable
in an age without connection. Smart medical prediction devices. Apps on your
phone. Autonomous military robots. Self-driving cars. And we know that, lingering
ahead of us now, as well, are a series of technological leaps that will breed still faster
interaction and creation: Quantum computing, for instance, may yet push computer
to speeds to 100 billion times faster than what is achievable with older technology.
Self-taught, reasoning artificial intelltigence will spot patterns invisible to human
minds, they will offer everythying from computer-assisted explanation to whole
new theories of physics and math?°. And autonomous robotic systems will press
into realms where our soft human frame cannot survive - deep underwater
biological cracks, for instance, or hot molecular material mixes. More data will flow
back at us from each of these pipes.!2” And as it arrives it will give us an even more
granular sense of our links to the world - and how they might be manipulated for
still more invention. “Many biological and social theories were impossible to test
because of lack of data,” one team of cyber-systems researchers noted. “Now we
have not only the data, but the methods to analyze it.” The result, they add with a
fast breath of relief that could be laid upon many sciences or theories we’ve
squeezed from limited data: “We are recovering from extreme reductionism in
science.”128
When we say the network “wants” something, it’s a useful anthropomorphism: A
billion connected users want to be linked, so Facebook emerges. A trillon web pages
demand to be searched, so Google appears. Making such ties produces, first, that
125 The easier it is to combine things: See Eric Schmidt, “Conversation with Eric
Schmidt hosted by Danny Sullivan” at Search Engine Strategies Conference, August 9,
2006.p.1-2 2013 Nathaniel W. Husted
126 Self-taught: Michael Nielsen, “The Rise of Computer-Aided Explanation”, Quanta
Magazine, June 23 2015
127 More data: Caitriona H. Heinl, “Artificial (Intelligence) Agents and Active Cyber
Defence: Policy Implications” in 6th International Conference on Cyber Conflict,
P.Brangetto, MMaybaum, J.Stinissen (Eds.) 2014 p, 60
128 “We are recovering’ :Gershonesen, et al. p 2-4
90
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018322
Extracted Information
Dates
Document Details
| Filename | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018322.jpg |
| File Size | 0.0 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 85.0% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 3,352 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-04T16:34:42.599701 |