The future of digital

 This is the continuation of the presentation that I gave at the meeting on future policies in intellectual property.

 Professor Negroponte advocated bits over atoms and virtual over real, and that change has come about. A world beyond that is here. The trend is toward intelligence, wearable, and ubiquitous. Another way of putting it is, “Clever, always, everything.”

1)    Intelligence: (Clever)

Media creates content automatically without your interference. It acts as your autonomous agent, expressing and creating in the world of the net.

2)    Wearable: (Always)

Mobile brought us “anytime,” but with wearables the switch is never off. Now we have 24-hr (always) information. Tactile information and smells become content. Our pulses and brainwaves become content.

3)    Ubiquitous: (Everything)

Bits enter all atoms. Even towns become media and release information. Things produce information that leads to content.

 As a result of this, new problems arise. For example, to what extent can an agent represent us? How can we be held responsible for communications and contracts instigated by our agents?

 How will we protect privacy when wearable devices are always on, always gathering and accumulating information? How will we handle the right to cut off the ubiquitously accumulating flow of information?

 Also, how will we handle the rights of things? Does a “thing” that creates content hold the copyright? What will happen if a thing releases deceitful information? What happens when a robot controlled over the internet does a good deed or perpetrates a crime? Where does the responsibility lie?

 More and more issues will appear in the future, and these will require policy considerations. We must work to imagine what they will be and how to solve them.