A presentation given in Sino-European Research Forum Future Topics in Information Systems and Information Society

2. Speech:
 10^7 bits
 Tribes
Writing:
 10^11 bits
 City cultures
Printing:
 10^17 bits
 Renaissance
 Industrial society
Digital:
 10^25 bits
 Information society
Donald Robertson: New Renaissance

3. … But our brains are still in the
speech learning stage
Gutenberg Encyclopedia

4. The Future of Information Society
Jyrki J.J. Kasvi

5. Economic crises come and go
True megatrends reshape societies
 Climate change and environmental sustainability
– A growing part of economic growth is going to be used on emission control and adaptation
to climate change
 Global demographic change
– The average Finnish age is about 40 years
• Half of Finnish voters are pensioners
– In developing countries the great generations are becoming adults
• Every third Egyptian is under 15 years of age
 Global networking and dependency
– The rise of BRIC countires to economic, cultural and military superpowers
 New technologies are shaping our societies
– ICT now penetrates our societies

6. E.g. robot baby seals were used to comfort elderly
Japanese who had lost everything in the tsunami
(NHK Video screenshot)

7. Waves of technology
Fusion
Globalisation society
GNP Biotech ?? yrs
Complexity society
Speed of change 25 yrs
Information
society
50 yrs
Industrial You are here!
society
Agricultural 250 yrs
socety
6000-7000 yrs
Mika Mannermaa
Government and education have trouble keeping up.
www.kasvi.org

8. Predicting futures
 ”I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
 Thomas Watson, IBM CEO ,1943.
 ”Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”
 Popular Mechanics magazine on development of science, 1949.
 ”There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”
 Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society Convention, 1977
 "You aren't going to turn passive consumers into active trollers on the
Internet."
 Stephen Weiswasser, senior VP, ABC television, 1989
 "The Internet? Bah!"
 Newsweek headline, 1995
 In many cases, science fiction has actually been more accurate than mere
science.

9. E.g. ”Brain pacer”
Science fiction has inspired developers of ICT
(True24.9.2009 Neuromancer, …)
Names, www.kasvi.org 9

10. What society?
 Information society
 Information is the key mean, object and
result of culture and economy
 ICT society
 Emphasises the role of technology as definer os socety: ”The code is law.”
 Ubiquitous society
 Technology is omnipresent and transparent to its users.
 Network society
 Emphasises the role of social networks and networking.
 Postmodern society
 Post industrial society with overlapping meanings and perspecives.
 Fusion society
 ICT combined with nano, bio, gene and cognitive technologies

11. Evolution of Internet
 1980’s: Internet is a network of computers
 Still the technological definition of Internet: Network of computers using the
TCP/IP-protocol
 1990’s: Internet is a network of information
 Ted Nelson’s Xanadu
 WWW = URL addres & HTTP protocol & HTML language
 2000’s: Internet is a network of people
 Social media
CC 2.0 Generic Attribution Robert Scolbe
 Networking and sharing
Tim Berners-Leen WWW-palvelin.
 2010’s: Internet becomes a
network of things
 Ubiquitous society
 Ipv6, rfid

12. The next 50 years
 Industrial revolution had two stages
 The first ~50 years the technology evolved
 The next ~50 years that technology reshaped
the basic structures of our societies
 Now ICT has penetrated our society in ~50 years
 The structures created by industrial revolution are crumbling
 The pace of technological and societal change is rapidly increasing
 It took 100-120 yrs to build the global wired telephone network.
 It took 10 yrs to build a corresponding global wireless phone network
 It took 2-3 years for social media to become a global phenomenon
 In ten years time anything can be in everyday use even if it has not been
invented yet.
 A child going to school this autumn is going to be working in the 2070’s.
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13. Horst Zuse
The pace of change
has not slowed since
these days.
US Army Photo
7.4.2008
www.kasvi.org
13

14. Era of sharing
 Information is like money. It creates new
information and benefits society only when
it is used and invested.
 Money locked in a money bin is as useless
ase information stored in a closed database.
 Governments are opening their databases
 Improves government transparency and exposes corruption
 Increases growth of data intensive service SME’s
 Enhances cross-government data use
– In EU the direct savings potential is 40 billion €/y and indirect 100 billion
 ”Knowldedge is not power anymore, sharing of knowledge is.”
– Teemu Arina
 “The best way to get value from data is to give it away”
– Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner of the Digital Agenda

15. Open data: a public service created by active citizens:
Combines data scraped from labour office web pages with map data and public transport timetables.
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16. Free is the new black
 The most popular mobile game in the world is free
 Over one billion downloads
 The most popular search engines, map services and email services are free
 But Facebook and Google are not charities!
 The most popular Internet multi player game is free
 Over 35 million registered players
 One of the most awarded comics in the world is free
 E.g. Hugo in 2009, 2010 and 2011
 The most watched Finnish movie is free
 3,5 – 4 million downloads in 2 months
 Technology has always improved productivity and cut prices …
 Free is a new way to make money!

17. Cumulonimbus
 Data, software and data processing are being
tranferred from own servers to the cloud ...
 Capital not tied to own hardware
– Enables flexible adaptation and development
 Optimises computing power and resource use
– E.g. The proposed U.K G-Cloud was estimated to save CC SA Attribution Sugree
£3,2 billion per year
 ... and becoming on-demand services
 When data and applications are in different clouds and you control the API’s you
can tender and change service providers
 The cloud does not respect geographic border, but borders do matter
 Client, service provider, data and porcessing may be in different countries
– E.g. Consumer protection, data security and privacy legislation are different
– Server location determines juridistiction
 International rules do not exist and even national laws are outdated
 Contracts and EULA’s

18. E.g. Cloud television
 Broadcast-television is becoming an on-demand
cloud service
 In 2010 NetFlix created 20% of US Internet traffic
 Finnish law carefully avoids the subject of Internet
television
 Control transfers from TV companies to viewers
 Broadcast channels are left with news and current
issues
 Television companies and authorities react slowly
 New companies are ready to take over the TV market
 Old IPR contracts do not cover ipTV
 Pirates’ P2P networks are still popular with better
selection, quality and service than legal content
providers

19. Media revolution
 Internet has already replaced television
 Finns spend as much time in Internet as watching TV
 Watcher controlled ipTV
 E-readers replace papers and books
 Bookstores are facing the fate of record stores
 Games have been a bigger industry than movies for 10 years
 Finnish game development industry needs 600 new employees every year.
 Mail delivery is ending
 Paper bills and newspapers are disappearing

20. Cultural change
• Digital divide becomes activity divide
• ICT gives active people new means to be even more
active members of the society
• Gives passive people new means to be even more passive
• Digital culture is easily overlooked
• A whole Finnish generation was in Habbo Hotel and IRC Gallery before “old
media” and society noticed social media
• Over 100.000 Finns were playing Internet poker before society took notice.
• What cultural change is going on at the moment without us noticing it?
 Digital vigilantes address problems frustrating Internet activists
 In the Internet people are used to instant response
– years long compromise ridden political process frustrates them
 Hacktivists attack global companies, states, politicians and criminal organisations
– There is no legal protection or complaint
 More a society or culture sharing values, ethos and identity than anorganisation
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21. Digital imperative
 Internet access is not a privilege but
a basic right
 You cannot be a member of society without
Internet access
 Can Internet connection be cut as a punishment?
 Who buys the computers and pays the for Internet fees for those who
cannot afford?
 Who pays for the non-digital public and private services for those who for
some reason cannot use computers and Internet.
 Availability and accessibility of digital services
 Digital services and contents must be accessible to all
 Available to people with disabilities, sensomotoric diseases, reading
problems etc
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22. The fun times are only beginning
By 2015:
 ICT goes to cloud and becomes an
on-demand service
 Consumer protection, data protection, legal protection, international treaties
 Augmented reality becomes everyday reality
 Mobile devices are forerunners, next cars
 Garage hackers are back
 Current market leaders were once in a garage, why not the next ones too
By 2020:
 ICT evolves and becomes cheaper
 3D-printing brings manufacturing to homes
 NFC revolutionalises payment industry like rfid did
logistics
 Technological breakthroughs on other sciences
 Neuroscience, bio- and genescience, nano technology, …
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23. E.g. ICT + cognitive science =
UC Berkeley

24. U.S. Army Photo
Sukupuolten välinen digikuilu?
Discussion
30.9.2010 www.kasvi.org 24

25.  Tekijänoikeudet
 Työelämä
 The code is law