Cybersite

It will generally enhance the operation of markets and participation of individuals and groups in governance. However, it also facilitates instantaneous assessment of opinions, which may lead a representative governing system to be so driven by short-term mass opinions as to become incapable of sustained governance. A representative democracy, which traditionally incorporated time for leaders and citizens alike to evolve attitudes and compromise, may notsurvive in the face of instant polling and publicising of those instant opinions. quot;Wholeness incorporating Diversityquot; may be difficult to sustain in an era of instantaneous opinion generation and tallying.

The role and structure of societal intermediaries8217; will evolve rapidly. Technology will enable individuals and groups to bypass existing sources of news and information, as well as established controls on access. New intermediaries will arise to authenticate information and to facilitate access and use. Who will play this key political and social role in the future?

Any new technology usually threatens the previous infrastructure in some way. New capital investment is usually required as well. So there are inevitably institutional and other obstacles. In addition, the enormous potential impact of NICT on beliefs and actions will inevitably lead to attempts to control or subvert it.

Consolidation of providers of access and services, resulting from normal market forces, could lead to price barriers toaccess, monopolistic control and even to supply-side filtering and manipulation. Thus, the possibility cannot be entirely ignored of an Internet wasteland arising analogously to how a few channels of black and white broadcast television once seemed to promise a widely available and affordable source of information but instead evolved into dozens of colour channels completely dominated and corrupted by entertainment needs.

Will Net anarchy lead to Net control? How can diverse and decentralised users who never meet face-to-face incorporate mutual obligation with shared goals and thus become a continuing community? If this cannot be maintained on a voluntary, communal basis continuing the bottom-up approach of the Internet there inevitably will be a call for top-down control.

The tendency of political and religious authority to seek control of such a powerful new means of human discourse and interaction is likely. For example, will there be attempts to control receivers? It was done with fax machines inChina. Moral prohibitions from listening and, especially, from interacting? That approach may be tried in fundamental religious communities.

Information overload and saturation could become the most significant barrier to utilising the potential of the Net for all but the most sophisticated users. Will software agents and filters really empower ordinary individuals and small groups to navigate the vast ocean of information, trivia, misinformation?

The complete text of this article is available at cco.caltech.edu/ rich/aspen.html