Vint Cerf Imagines the Net's Future At NASA

destinyland writes "Vint Cerf performed an hour-long Q&A at NASA for their 'Singularity University' (which is partially funded by Google ). A question about Twitter led Cerf to imagine even more useful micro-applications using the wireless internet and cell phones, including real-time health data and checking your location against a map of known biohazards and disease outbreaks. 'These systems have applications which I think we will discover over time,' Cerf says, adding 'For me, the exciting thing to just anticipate, are the new ideas for using these instruments.' Also speaking were Ray Kurzweil and nanotechnology expert Ray Merkle. (Read an interview with SU co-founder Peter Diamandis in the new issue of H+ magazine)."

Comments

Imagine

[MyLongNickName]

Imagine having advice hooked up that could monitor for a heart attack or a stroke. If detected, emergency could be called automatically. If reliable, what would this do for survival rates? In many cases, survival or simply the degree of damage is determined by how quickly treatment begins. I think something like this, if reliable and unobtrusive, would be a major leap forward for health treatment.

Re:Imagine

[ShiftyOne]

That could be an early possibility. This technology could also be used to monitor your body in real-time, ensuring that you are staying healthy. This would allow for prevention of heart attacks and strokes, instead of allowing for fast treatment after the problems occur.

Re:Imagine

[causality]

When I wrote the original post, I knew this would be the first response (outside of a goofy troll, I was right). Basically, every advance has the potential to be used for evil purposes. It is up to us as a society to stand up against that. That has nothing to do with the technology itself.

Here's the difference: did it come from top-down edicts, or from the overwhelming demand of the people? That is, is it something most people have wanted for a long time now that has finally become possible/economical, or is it something that must be sold to them? Is it a solution looking for a problem? Is its participation entirely voluntary and opt-on only or will people be coerced in some way into accepting it whether they want it or not? After all, if it's "for my own good" you should have no stake in whether I use it or not, and thus no problem with my refusal to use it.

The other side of the coin is that there are some technologies with marginal or dubious benefits and extremely terrible potential abuses. What do you call something that can only benefit you a little bit but might really hurt you a lot? Poor decision-making. The problem is that surveillance in general, the uses to which it can be put, and just how much power it represents, are not terribly well known. I'll gladly take my chances with whether I can reach a telephone and dial 911 before I'll wear any sort of monitoring device. That's because I am weighing the unlikely scenario of dying because I could not get to a doctor fast enough against the very likely scenario of this technology being abused when it becomes widespread. I'd much rather have a slightly higher chance of dying in a freer country than a slightly higher chance of surviving in a more tyrannical country. Any day.

Re:Imagine

[CrimsonAvenger]

Basically, every advance has the potential to be used for evil purposes. It is up to us as a society to stand up against that. That has nothing to do with the technology itself.

Yep. Every technology can be used for evil purposes. And "society" has every right to stand up against that sort of thing.

The question becomes: is there any way that society CAN stand up against that sort of thing if we're all wearing our little monitoring devices?

I'm not specifically talking about the government doing the monitoring, but SOMEONE will monitor things, if only for "quality control purposes". Any problems with your ex- being one of the people who do the monitoring? Yes, your ex- is unlikely to be doing that but the people doing that are going to be SOMEONE's ex-. Is it okay if they can keep track of every orgasm you have? If they can monitor your vitals, they can tell when you're having sex, after all.

How about if they can check on WHO you're having sex with? It'll be someone in the same location, and unless you're really crappy at the whole sex thing, your partner's vitals will let anyone watching know that they're having a good time too...

Lots of things I could be doing that I don't want the government to know about. Even more that I don't especially want the neighbors to know about. Much less than neighbor's computer-literate teenagers....

And since this is all broadcast, just about anyone with sufficient savvy and equipment can monitor pretty much whatever they want - the internet doesn't keep too many secrets very well, after all. And cell phones even fewer....

Seriously?

[quangdog]

checking your location against a map of known biohazards and disease outbreaks.

Seriously?

When was the last time you rounded a corner and stepped right in a pile of biohazard or disease outbreak? While I can see the utility and potential upside to a lot of the ideas being implemented on mobile devices these days, some of them seem to be solutions looking for a problem.

Re:Seriously?

[Lord Ender]

I'm traveling to India soon, and I would very much like to avoid the parts with malaria if I can. It would be useful to know that a large number of people in some neighborhood were diagnosed with malaria recently, especially when picking a hotel.

It would also be good to know recent parasite and food poisoning stats on a per-restaurant basis.