In the year 2020...

Pew conducted survey of analysts and experts, asking them to conceive of the Internet in the year 2020 (hence 11 years from now, practically forever in technology terms).  This a pool of close to 1200 people, so far far larger than, say, the Horizon Report board. 

One figure the summary mentions is the the Internet is today used by 1.6 billion people, "with another billion expected to be added soon."  1.6B is vast but still only 25% of the people on the planet. Seems small given how much a part of our lives the Internet has become.

Here are the main findings seasoned with a dash of commentary:

• The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the Internet for most people in the world in 2020. >> Maybe, except it won't be a phone anymore.  "Phone" is too conventional a concept to describe what this device will be.

• The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.   >> I would agree with this.  Over time, it seems to me, these advances are always double-edged, used for good as well as for ill.

• Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the Internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020. >> I think this is too conservative by far. Touch and voice are well underway already; 11 years from now these will be as invisible as the keyboard is today.

• Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing "arms race," with the "crackers" who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.  >> This too I think is too conservative.  Crackers will always be at work, for sure.  But I am guessing that 2020 will be largely a post-DRM world.

 • The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.  >> Agreed.

• "Next-generation" engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch. >> Don’t know but sounds likely, knowing how these things typically work.  I imagine a rebuild from scratch would be more efficient, but in big things like this efficiency doesn't always rule the day. 

The Pew report is called "The Future of the Internet III."  A brief summary is here: Pew survey summary.

Comments

[Joshua Kim]

Great link...thank you. In 2020 I'll be 50 - my girls will be well into college - so sort of need to think about.

I downloaded and am slowly making my way through the report.

In thinking about 2020 two things seem important. When thinking about the future we make the mistake of over-estimating changes in the things/trends/technologies that we use today, and under-estimating changes things/trends/technologies that we do not use.

In other words, the most important trend or technology in 2020 will most likely be some development that we did not predict or estimate.

These are Taleb's Black Swans. The Internet was a Black Swan. So was the attack on 9/11 - or Pearl Harbor. The discovery of the germ theory of disease was a Black Swan. Some folks in the college investment community will want to tell us that the current drop in endowments are Black Swans - but don't believe them (with high returns comes high downsides..this was predictable and should have been planned for - but I digress).

So a pretty safe bet is someone unknown event (or technology or social movement) will be the most important determinant of things like social relations, work, national priorities, and even how technology mediates any of these. We just don't know what that event/trend/technology will be.

On the other hand, since we tend to over-estimate changes in the things we have/know/do now then it is a good bet that in many ways 2020 will seem familiar.

In our world we will probably still have courses, and professors, and grades. On the technology side...we will still work with monitors and keyboards - and technologies that are meant to help us write, communicate, research etc. 2020 will feel as familiar as 1999.....

Looking forward to reading the entire report. Thanks again for the link.