Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Collective Voice of the Internet

Posted by michael on from the sorta-like-homer-simpson dept.

nycheetah submits a story about the collective voice of the internet. There's also a Bell Labs webpage with some more technical information about the project.

9 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Forget about art. This is a weapon! by ArcSecond · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe they can use this principle for security, too... have some "Rain Man"-type sit in a chair and monitor the composite sounds of the internet, scanning for a particular pattern.

    I wonder what the sound of a DDOS would be? A waterfall? Maybe a port scan would be a rising set of tones? And some cop in a LOLITA chat room would sound like (what else?) the theme from Jaws.

    --

    I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.

  2. Can the web become conscious? by Xavier000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    People may think this is a ridiculous question, but perhaps one that needs to be asked. First to put it in context. Inside most human brains are about a billion connections that communicate to a greater and lesser extent to those synapses directly in contact with them. The collective 'noise' from the electrical charges between the synapses somehow gives form to human consciousness. The electrical energy helps store memories and a bunch of other things, too.
    I read an article once by an Australian author Peter Goldsworthhy (if anyone is interested it is in his book Navel Gazing) that pondered whether or not China could collectively gain a consciousness, based on the same principle. (A billion people, all in contact with those around them, much as synapses are). I don't know how many people are connected to the web, but using a healthy dose of hope and suspending disbelief, does anyone have any ideas on whether or not the web can gain a consciousness?

    1. Re:Can the web become conscious? by mackstann · · Score: 3, Interesting

      the problem i see with this line of thinking is that while there are billions, trillions, whatever-illions of connections going on inside your brain at any one time, you still only have one body to act with, one mouth to speak with, etc. the internet is many individual people, each of them complex and intelligent (it could be argued that neurons are complex and intelligent but from what we know, i dont think they are), but the internet does not have one point of actualization. it's just a bumbling mess of interconnected people, most of them just reading their email or chatting or reading yahoo news or *whatever* it is that most people do on the internet.

      sure sounds neat though :)

      replies encouraged :)

    2. Re:Can the web become conscious? by Xavier000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I wasn't trying to suggest the web would start talking to us, but I wonder whether it could have a collective vibe that trickles from any part of the WWW to any other part. An understanding among all web users that this vibe exists. A form of consciousness, that is different to what we already utilise.
      I would also dispute your single point of actualisation. Some people cannot talk, but still have full consciousness. Some people have almost no working senses at all, but are still conscious. I don't think the point of actualisation is the point, it is the element of understanding. I am no philosopher though, any input from anyone else would sure be welcomed, especially someone with a philosophy major.

    3. Re:Can the web become conscious? by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've often thought there might be at least two types of this "emergent consciousness" on the Net. One is, as you say, collective consciousness on the part of a large number of people. This already happens, I think, in large groups (much smaller than the population of China) -- any group of people, be it a business, a government, a church, a social group, whatever, develops some characteristics of a conscious being, with its human members as the cells. This is why people do things in groups that they never would as individuals. Some of the muscle cells in your arm may be pacifists who would never harm a soul ;) -- but when you decide to punch someone on the face, they pretty much have to go along with it. The analogies to the actions of the large groups I mentioned above should be obvious.

      The other, potentially more interesting kind is purely machine-based. I think all those old science fiction stories about a single giant computer or worldwide network that one day "wakes up" (and invariably decides to elminate its human creators) are a little bit off. The Net isn't a being; it's an environment, an ecosystem. There's a lot of semi-autonomous logic running around right now -- everything from search engine bots to viruses -- and it's subject to tremendous selective pressure. Some of it may be smarter than we know ...

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    4. Re:Can the web become conscious? by 3Bees · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What silliness! Why do you suppose that the Internet/Web hasn't already become concious? Why do you think that China isn't already a self-aware entity? Do you honestly have the arrogance to suppose that it was your choice whether or not you clicked on the links in the story?

      Why do you think that humans would be able to recognize whether or not this has happened, is happening, or will happen? Hehe, silly slashdot, philosophy is for the web-uber-mind!

      --
      "I think we should tax people who stand in water! " - Mr. Gumby
  3. wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    When i listened to that I thought i2pi.

    Hook that up to some visualisation code and it would be a great way to chill/freak out.

    For something similar, check out Elran by i2pi. Turn up the sound, turn off the lights and get hypnotised.

  4. Countless others... by archeopterix · · Score: 4, Interesting
    From the article:
    Countless others are with you when you browse the web, some reading the same words at the same time, and yet you have no way of sensing their presence.
    I remember a project that addressed this issue more directly - namely providing you with a client that allowed you to chat with folks visiting the same website. Cool idea, except for the privacy issues - the client of course had to report what websites you are visiting. The project was called 'gooey' or something similar. I guess it never took off. Well, they didn't have a Linux client, serves them right :-)
  5. Why not make it useful? by ethank · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've explored the concept of proximity and simultaneity of presence within my own work, but do it on a website instead of within an installation.

    On my site we basically track where people are, but limit you knowing WHO those people are by using affinity relationships gleaned by your buddy list.

    The presentation of this information is in the form of a line similar to this:

    "There are 3 people here with you and 5 people near you.
    BUDDIES: Ethank, Ethank2"

    The site is broken down into a series of interconnected and hierarchically laid out "rooms." Rooms don't necessarily correspond directly to a page, but roughly they do. Within the discussion board for instance, a forum is a room and every thread within that forum a room under that room (so the forum is its parent).

    The way that the "here/near" works is by looking at not only who is in your current room (page) but also who is in rooms one level below in the hierarchy. Some places on the site have indicators on links showing how many people are currently in the room it leads to (to instigate flocking behavior in things like news stories).

    We implemented the system 6 months ago and I'm surprised on how willingly people adapted to it. If you look at an overhead view of the site, its shown that the proximity to other users in many tangible ways dictates usage patterns, as well as makes the site feel less like a ghost town.

    So where does this lead us? I want to explore more into this notion of reified third-space that this brings up, collapsing space/time into singularity and exploring the notion not of client-server individual experiential models but more of a shared one.

    But, instead of in an installation that distills numerous ingress points into an aural landscape, why not actually make this proximity and user awareness transparent on existing sites?

    I'm all for good installations (am doing one in April kind of similar to this, but dealing with the physical layer of the Internet), but as a student am more drawn toward subtle almost performative art within the context of Internet participation.