A small roadmap for Open Source

[technossomy]

We have organised our society such that ever increasingly machines and devices improve and extend our lives. We use vacuum cleaners and dish washers to create hygiene in our homes, we use tractors that move soil and mechanise crop production to avert famine, and we use scanners and sensors to measure performance and treat problems. An ever increasing amount of computer power will be required to create security and comfort in our lives. At the same time, hardware prices drop by about 10% per month, in other words, more computing power is available for the same price with every passing month.
Suppose at home I have a device that is capable of creating any medicine for me. It is perhaps no bigger than the coffee machine it is placed next to. It knows my DNA and gene-structure, because I identified myself to it as did everyone in my household at the time I installed it. Every fortnight I use it to conduct a health check by sampling a tiny drop of blood. It immediately returns with a diagnosis - if any is needed - as well as a treatment and automatically sends a message to a pharmacist to stock up on ingredients. It can do so, because the device is wired up with countless other machines through the web and using grid computing biometrically calculates what the molecular structure is of the medicine I will need, given a certain profile of side effects I am willing to be subject to. Even though some medication may already exist that is proven to help me and the vast majority of humankind, I will unlikely use it, because the grid has just found a better one. In the next few days I go to the pharmacist to collect my medicine, which has already been robotically manufactured in a laboratory and I follow the prescribed instructions from that point forward, also computer generated and in my own language. How does this device integrate in our society?
- It uses other computers to farm out work, namely calculations
- It is integrated in a larger and ubiquitous messaging infrastructure: inventory control, debit and credit control, transportation of ingredients
- It may be assumed the grid becomes smarter and uses increasingly accurate empirical statistics every time someone in the world submits another sample
- It uses personally identifiable data and will therefore use some form of identification and authentication
- It is part of a process that does not rely on manual intervention, even the pick up point can be mechanised

It will become increasingly harder to understand how exactly computers and machines will interact. The device described may use the computing power of the climate control in an idle car wirelessly connected to the web, as far fetched as that may seem. However, when cogwheels were first used in medieval times to create a machine that could tell time, its internal structure was equally obscure to most people, and thought of the clock as being alive.
In fact, what if my toothbrush did all of the above because it can easily sample my saliva every day? What if I do not need to go to the pharmacist's pick up point, but receive my medicine in the mail to create a higher level of anonymity? What if the medicine was not only there to cure, but even better, to prevent a cure being needed?

We are moving towards a world where society will for a very larger part than is currently the case be dependent on computing power and that computing power will have an underlying model. The model cannot be designed, because it is emergent, ie exhibits behaviour which cannot be predicted by looking at the behaviour of its underlying components. It may even be too complex to simulate. Its underlying components however have at some point been designed and built and are the result of a creative process. Let the open source movement be part of that model.

[Dapper Dan]

I can see how such a machine/computer would be useful in a situation where one feels they are developing illness or when they want a "checkup" from time to time. I think however to have such a process on the scale you are envisioning would be massive overkill.

I personally would be leery of such a process because it could easily create a situation where ones health and well being might possibly be placed into the hands of the machine/computer manufacturers and the pharmaceutical industry. My experience has been that doctors and pharmaceutical companies will always find a good reason to medicate you!

The human body is an incredible self-righting machine and in most cases gets better on it's own. I prefer to allow my body to educate itself and fight illness on its own which in turn is tremendously beneficial to my immune system.

If there could be such a process that is limited to being a diagnostic tool when and if the participant decides to use it, then I think it could be a really good idea.

I am almost always against governmental and bureaucratic control. The process as you describe it, could become yet another method by which governments usurp more freedoms from the people. If given the opportunity, governments almost always vie for more control at the expense of the people's liberty.

I admire your vision and imagination about this, and though I'm not being critical of your idea in general, wanted to share my thoughts and feelings in a constructive way about how such a process might possibly be abused.

[fingal]

Technology is interesting, but I don't believe it will ever be a universal panacea for the ills of the world. In fact, it is often misapplied and helps to cause many of the ills which currently afflict us.

I like computers, and machines can be useful. However, you are writing from within your own context. A lot of people have never used a computer, and are unprivileged. I don't think this situation will change in the near future.

I often wish our world was less complicated.

[hazel]

I recall once reading a science fiction story called "The machine stops". I can't remember who wrote it. It visualised a society completely serviced by a world wide machine network of the kind visualised here. People had long forgotten that there was any other way to live. They had become totally dependent on the proper working of the machine. And then the machine went wrong...