Informational Public Utility? A vision for the future for the Internet?
Ronda Hauben
1970 about the Information Utility and Social Choice.
The conference had a keynote by J.C.R. Licklider and talks by a
number of other people including Harold Sackman, Irving S. Beglesdorf,
Harold Borko, etc.
I have been impressed to see the fact that there seems to have
been a vision of how there would develop a network of networks
either for increasing democratic participation by citizens in their
societies and for increasing communication and interaction or for
hoarding knowledge and toward creating totalitarian
control.
And that it would have to be administered in the same way that
the development of the network had been created, i.e. through
the experimental processes guided by computer science methodology
and by a social vision and practice.
For example J.C.R. Licklider recognized that there there
would be a point reached where there was a switch that could
go in either a social direction whereby the developing network
would be directed toward fostering human-to-human communication
and toward people being encouraged to interact with computers
and information, or a downward direction where the network
would encourage people to be passive and to just be the passive
recipients of data from the developing network.
Harold Borko urged that as "as scientists and as human beings
we have the responsibility for guiding the products of our science
in socially desirable directions." And he urged that the computer
utility that was being developed be an instrument for sharing
scientific achievements and improved democratic participation,
rather than for hoarding knowledge or toward creating totalitarian
control.
H. Sackman proposed that "no one has faced up to the problem of
social information on a regulated public utility." He maintained
that manufacturers and the industry didn't have any guidance
as to "what the public wants nor what the public needs." And
that "if immediate profits are the supreme end of all social
planning because no other serious contenders arise, then the
information utility could end up as the most barren wasteland
of them all."
Instead he proposed that computers were revolutionizing science,
particularly the method and findings of science.
He proposed "That suggested resolution looks toward an
evolving universalization of science, nourished by global
information utilities within a framework of increasing
international cooperation."
He urged that the public interest be kept in mind as there
be an effort to figure out how to provide the kind of
scientific oversight to the developing computer information
utility. He proposed utilizing scientific design and test
methodologies to do this, much as the work in developing
computer technology utilized these scientific processes.
These are just short notes about three of the talks at this
interesting conference that took place in 1970, just as
the research on the ARPANET was in its earliest days.
And yet there was a vision that a network of networks would
develop and that there would be a need to apply the same
kind of scientific methodology that was used to create
the network to its development and toward having it serve
people's needs and interests.
There seemed a commitment to expanding communication among
people and interactive participation of people rather than
to creating passive processes that would mimic the worst
of the old world.
I wondered if anyone has an idea of what has happened to
this vision and this commitment?
The recent events in the U.S. to privatize various aspects
of the Internet show no understanding of this social vision
or of the commitment to applying scientific processes to
the development of the future computer utility, which we today
call the Internet.
Has this vision gotten lost?
I was surprised to find it expressed so strongly in the presentations
of several of the participants in this 1970 conference.
Is there a way to bring this vision and the methodology back into
the heart of the development of the network of networks?
If so, perhaps there is a way that can be found for the plans
by the U.S. govt to change the management structure of the essential
functions of the Internet to reflect something that is scientific,
based on increasing communication, and in spreading the Internet,
rather than the legalistic, secretive and exclusive view of turning
the Internet into a commercenet that currently is governing the
way that the ICANN folks and those who seem to be designing its
structure are functioning.
We are entering a new year, and a year that is the prelude to
welcoming in of a new millenium. It is important that we take the
future seriously and try to figure out how to make it one we
choose rather than one that is given to us by those who have
no vision and no concern the advantages that increased
communication among those around the world will bring to all
aspects of society.
Comments, disagreements, and any other variety of response welcome
to help to properly celebrate the coming of a new year
on the Internet :-)
Ronda
ro...@panix.com
P.S. The book is "The Information Utility and Social Choice",
papers prepared for a conference sponsored jointly by
The University of Chicago, Encyclopedia Britannica and
The American Federation of Information Processing Societies.
It is edited by H. Sackman and Norman Nie.
Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook
also in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6