Kevin Kelly lecture - Response

I completely agree with Kevin Kelly's mindset about needing to be open to accepting predictions about where the web and technology are going. He reminded us that 5000 days ago--around ten years ago,--one would have been perceived as crazy for seriously predicting that the internet would reach the standard of today's technological and societal advancements; today's Web 2.0 would have been perceived as impossible when proposed ten years ago. This mentality is part of why I feel very open-minded, accepting and trusting in Kelly's predictions about where the web will be in 5000 more days. As he stated, we better "get good at believing in the impossible."

Right now, people use a myriad of different devices that connect to the web. Really, they just function as different portals into one machine. After all, we all are connecting to the same, common, one internet. Hence, it is "the greatest machine," as Kelly explains it.

Each year, more and more people use the internet with more frequency and dependence. And each year, more and more aspects of our lives become connected to the web with the development of new "portals" made more easily available. Everything is becoming connected online--businesses, relationships, education, social networking, media, video games, social networking, entertainment, economy, services... According to Kelly's statistics, there are currently 100 billion clicks on the web per day. The statistics seem to be growing at an exponential rate.

Our lives are becoming more and more intertwined with the web: the tangible world and the online world are converging. If this trend continues, Kelly's predictions about the future of the web may very well come true. He proposes that the real world and digital world will merge into unity, completely. Everything would be owned by the web. Humans would become extensions of machines, rather than machines remaining as the extensions of humans, as Marshall McLuhan characterizes current technology.

In my last post about my visions of the Web 3.0, I expressed my belief that virtual reality and reality will eventually meet, especially with the drive of video game technology. It can be made possible with elements like artificial intelligence, specialized algorithms, and face and voice recognition combined with the shift towards moving everything online, digital and mobile. With all these advanced devices becoming apart of us physically (we carry them everywhere) and mentally (they are gaining the capability to "think"), the machine and the human truly are converging. It's becoming possible through the elements Kelly spoke of: embodiment, re-structure and co-dependency.