IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2017 - 28

There are two questions in the
end that emerge from a quick review
of the "state of the Web" and its likely future.
First, do we need to essentially
bail out of the current Web and
start, as quickly as possible, using
the insights we've garnered from
the last 30 years, and with plenty of
inclusive conversation across technology, society, humans, and the
natural world, to design something
event better? How realistic is that?
How disruptive would it be to essentially place a notice on everyone's
web sites and computers that says
"We're pleased to announce that
we're busy designing and building a
new and even better Web. The current one will be off line for a bit while
we do the renovations. We apologize
for any inconvenience."?
Perhaps not so realistic, but the
impulse behind the questions remains
to be answered.
The second question is tougher.
However smart the smart machines
become, breathing artificial intelligence and threatening to become
more intelligent than humans, do
they ever (can they ever) become
more human than humans?
Wouldn't it be true, once we can
work out what it means in practice,
that the best people to be humans
are, well, humans?

Things Don't Turn Out the Way
You'd Expect
Lean canvas and start-up teacher and practitioner Steve Blank
coined the memorable dictum that
"no business plan survives its first
contact with a customer" (https://
steveblank.com/2010/11/01/nobusiness-plan-survives-first-contactwith-acustomer-%E2%80%93-the5-2-billion-dollar-mistake/).
Blank's point is one we instinctively recognize, perhaps in another
familiar form, trading on Scottish
poet Robbie Burns - "the best laid

28

plans of mice and men often go
awry (or, in the Burns dialect, "the
best laid schemes o' mice an' men/
Gang aft a-gley").
How confidently, even assuming
we can discern them, can we translate insights and aspirations about
the Web's future into successful
implementation? We have much to
be wary about:
■ How technology and technology-based solutions to virtually any problem or opportunity
are actually applied is a function of context, culture, and in
many instances, what counts as
knowledge and capability.
■ In many cases, those working on
the same problem from different
perspectives are not talking the
same language and will often
mean quite different things when
they are dealing with the same
of concepts.
■ The more diverse the groups
involved in the problem-solving
or opportunity-realizing project,
the more complex are the bodies of knowledge and expertise
they will bring to the table; integrating those bodies of knowledge into a shared base of ideas
is harder than it might seem.
■ There are inevitably hierarchies
of knowledge and information
and there will therefore be
c ontests about which level will
assume priority over others (back
to issues of power, control, and
authority).
■ There will be resistors and siloprotectors, those anxious to

retain boundaries that others
seek to dissolve or combine in
the name of collaborative problem
solving, but from which those
comfortable with the status quo
sustain identity and authority.
They are unlikely to go quietly.
And perhaps most basically of
all, these tasks of analysis, reflection, and planning rely on access
to different types of expertise, respect for which in many situations is
eroding or at least under considerable pressure.
The role of, and respect for, expertise is a whole other debate
whose implications ripple out much
further than this brief paper. But its
implications are pervasive in the
Web Science ambition to privilege
ideas, knowledge, and many different sorts of expertise in the technology-society conversation.

Machines and Humans:
Take Your Pick
The debate about whether we'd prefer to live in a machine age turns out
not to be a debate at all, but rather
a nuanced, evolving conversation
about what it is that is wonderful
about both humans and machines
that needs to be preserved and
augmented to the mutual benefit of
each. The choice between machines
and human is not a contest, even if
it is, and should be, hotly contested
from time to time. Its successful
resolution (as in "re" "solution," that
is, something that has to be continually solved and then solved again) is
a negotiation about interdependence

"For whilst we might all agree that Web Science cannot develop without interdisciplinarity, we should be clear from the beginning that this is no simple matter.
We need to be realistic about what we are getting ourselves into. There will be
big challenges in making ourselves understood to each other, and developing
collaborative understandings will require us to leave the comfort of our disciplinary
silos. But, the promise of new forms of knowledge and understanding that are bigger
than the sum of our parts are gains worth working for."
http://journal.webscience.org/297/2/manifestoACM.pdf

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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SEPTEMBER 2017
http://https:// http://www.steveblank.com/2010/11/01/no http://journal.webscience.org/297/2/manifestoACM.pdf
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2017
