Эра информационных технологий

Б.Я.Солон

Мой давний приятель Майкл Рорер – известный специалист в области разработки систем хранения структурированной информации (баз данных) – прислал мне из США свои размышления о роли технологий в развитии человечества. Конечно, его утверждения небесспорны, однако они выстраиваются в схему, которая неизбежно ведет нас к пониманию того факта, что мы вступили в эру информационных технологий. Текст его статьи я приведу в авторской редакции. Для тех, кто поленится читать статью на английском языке, я составил по ней короткий комикс.

	На протяжении своей истории человечество прошло через несколько масштабных преобразований. During its history mankind went through several major transformation
Переход от охоты и собирательства к сельскому хозяйству. The first was the transition from hunting and food gathering to agriculture.
	Создание собственных продуктов питания и одежды позволили людям выжить, умножиться и распространиться по всему миру. Making their own food and clothes allowed people to survive , multiply and spread around the globe.
Потом пришла промышленная революция, которая заняла менее столетия, примерно с 1760 до 1820 гг. Then came industrial revolution, it took less than a century, from about 1760 to approximately 1820 .
	Транспорт - изобретение парового двигателя заменило парусные корабли пароходами; поезда могли перевезти грузы на всё большие расстояния, преобразуя производство и торговлю; затем двигатель внутреннего сгорания глубоко изменил персональный наземный транспорт. Общая мера материального прогресса валового внутреннего продукта на душу населения возросла во много раз. Transport - the invention of steam engine replaced sailing ships by steam boats; trains could carry goods far and at long distance, thus transforming manufacturing and trade; then internal combustion engine just as profoundly changed the personal land transportation. The common measure of material progress Gross Domestic Product per person increased many-fold.
Миллионы работников физического труда были заменены машинами. Образованные люди работали значительно лучше, чем необразованные; те, кто мог работать с техникой, делали себе достойную жизнь, тем, кто не мог, приходилось жить в условиях крайней нищеты. Millions of manual workers were replaced by machines. Educated people fared much better than uneducated; the ones who could operate machinery were making decent living, the ones who couldn't had to live the lives of extreme poverty.
	Поляризация общества привела к социальным волнениям и революциям, в итоге они создали демократические общества Европы и США. The polarization of society lead to decades of social unrest and revolutions, but eventually created the democratic societies of Europe and US.
В развитых странах большинство людей смогли найти работу, которая давала жизненный уровень несравнимо выше, чем до промышленной революции. In developed countries most people were able to find a job that provided standard of living incomparably higher than before the Industrial revolution.
	Следующая революция была также результатом технологического развития, и эффект был также глубок. На этот раз это была революция в области Информационных технологий, связанная с изобретением компьютеров, а затем появилась массовая сеть соединенных между собой компьютеров. The next revolution was also a result of technological development, and the effect was just as profound. This time it was the Information Technology, invention of computers and then a massive net of interconnected computers as a way to capture, store and present information.
Имитация военных операций, предсказывание погоды и ставок на спортивные игры - все эти виды деятельности человека стало возможным или значительно продвинулись в результате развития информационных технологий - компьютеров, соединенных в мега-сетей и коопераций, и компьютерных программ, т.е. организованные наборы инструкций о том, как собирать, хранить, извлекать, анализировать и представлять информацию. И снова, как и в случае промышленной революции, производительность выросла многократно, и стандарт жизни также значительно повысился.
	Imitating military operations, predicting weather and betting on sports games - all these human activities became possible or greatly advanced as a result of development of Information technologies - computers, connected in mega-nets and cooperating, and computer programs, i.e. organized sets of instructions on how to collect, store, retrieve, analyze and present information. And again, as in case of industrial revolution, the productivity rose manifold, and the standard of living, while very uneven, increased significantly as well.
Мы находим в "Google" все, от основных научных фактов, биографий кинозвезд, до кулинарных рецептов. Мы получили, как выразился один из великих информационных революционеров Билл Гейтс "Информацию на кончиках пальцев». We 'google' everything, from basic scientific facts, to biographies of movie stars, to cooking recipes . We got, as one of the great Information revolutionaries Bill Gates phrased it 'information at your finger tips'.
	Две наиболее насущные потребности людей, начиная с древних времен, являются хлеб и зрелища. С появлением информационных технологий кино, театральные постановки, концерты и футбольные матчи (аналог гладиаторских боев в Древнем Риме) пришли в наши дома, сначала с помощью дисков и кассет, содержащих оцифрованную информацию, на телевизоры, и теперь непосредственно в наши умные портативные устройства. The two most basic needs of humans, since ancient times, are bread and spectacle. With advent of Information technologies the movies, theater productions, concerts and football matches (the analog of gladiator fights in Ancient Rome) came to our homes, first by means of disks and tapes containing digitized information, TV sets, and now directly to our 'smart' hand-held devices.
В нашей жизни промышленное производства, производство и распределение энергии, все формы систем связи и управления в значительной степени зависят от компьютеров и сетей, поэтому нарушая информационную инфраструктуру страны, «кибер-война» может быть такой же разрушительный, как война с помощью «старых» оружий массового уничтожения. Since our lives, the industrial production, energy production and distribution, all forms of communication and control systems are heavily dependent on computers and networking, disrupting information infrastructure of a country, 'cyber warfare', can be as devastating as using 'old' weapons of mass destruction.
	Стивен Хокинг зашел так далеко, сказав, что "развитие полного искусственного интеллекта может означать конец человеческой расы", тем более, что "люди, ограниченные медленной биологической эволюцией, не могут конкурировать и будут заменены. " Stephen Hawking went as far as saying that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” especially since “humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.
Возможно, следующий этап информационной революции – искусственный интеллект, действительно так опасен, как говорят предсказатели будущего. Или, может быть, они просто стареют и боятся непредсказуемого будущего. Большинство людей не имеют никакого выбора, они должны просто подождать и посмотреть, что произойдет. Perhaps the next phase of Information Revolution, Artificial Intelligence, is indeed as dangerous as they say. Or, perhaps, they are just growing old and are afraid, as old people often are, of the unpredictable future. Most people have no choice, they have to simply wait and see what happens
	Но вы - у вас есть выбор. Вы можете не бояться будущего, вы можете сделать его. Вы можете не бояться непредсказуемых и быстрых изменений в информационных технологиях - вы можете узнать современные информационные технологии и создавать новые. Вы можете стать следующей жертвой информационной революции - и извлечь из этого пользу. Мастер или раб - выбор за вами.
But you - you have a choice. You can be afraid of the future, or you can make it. You can be afraid of the unpredictable and fast developments in information technologies - or you can learn the information technologies of the present and create new ones. You can become the next victim of Information Revolution - and benefit from it. A master or a slave - the choice is yours.

During its history mankind went through several major transformation. The first was the transition from hunting and food gathering to agriculture. Making their own food and clothes allowed people to survive , multiply and spread around the globe.

Then came industrial revolution, it took less than a century, from about 1760 to approximately 1820 s . Most what had been made by hands - agricultural and other tools, chemicals, iron was now built by machines. And, of course, transport - the invention of steam engine replaced sailing ships by steam boats; trains could carry goods far and at long distance, thus transforming manufacturing and trade; then internal combustion engine just as profoundly changed the personal land transportation. The common measure of material progress Gross Domestic Product per person increased many-fold.

Consequently, a major societal change took place, capitalism was replacing feudalism. Millions of manual workers were replaced by machines. Educated people fared much better than uneducated; the ones who could operate machinery were making decent living, the ones who couldn't had to live the lives of extreme poverty. The polarization of society lead to decades of social unrest and revolutions, but eventually created the democratic societies of Europe and US. In developed countries most people were able to find a job that provided standard of living incomparably higher than before the Industrial revolution.

The next revolution was also a result of technological development, and the effect was just as profound. This time it was the Information Technology, invention of computers and then a massive net of interconnected computers as a way to capture, store and present information. It happened much faster then the industrialization. Even though a proto-computer ('analytical engine') was invented in 1837, the first 'real' computer appeared in 1940, and served, as many human inventions, the purpose of war; by the beginning of 1950-s the first commercially successful computer UNIVAC was built - the computerization of our world took off.

In two-three decades every enterprise, every organization, including the Government, transferred many routine tasks like accounting, product inventory, some aspects of business planning and production management, payroll and personnel to software running on computers, from small to supercomputers. Imitating military operations, predicting weather and betting on sports games - all these human activities became possible or greatly advanced as a result of development of Information technologies - computers, connected in mega-nets and cooperating, and computer programs, i.e. organized sets of instructions on how to collect, store, retrieve, analyze and present information. And again, as in case of industrial revolution, the productivity rose manifold, and the standard of living, while very uneven, increased significantly as well.

Within the Information Revolution several sub-revolutions took place. None was more important than the personalization of computer-related technologies. In late 70-s and 80-s personal computers came to our homes and profoundly changed everybody's life. Soon they were not only capable of performing simple intellectual tasks, like writing an essay or doing budgeting, but were connected to millions of other computers in one mega-net called Internet. An integral part of Internet was device called data servers were trillions of facts could be stored. Computer programs were developed that allowed fast and intelligent search for information. If in the past only few highly educated people had access to accumulated human knowledge, in short few years of Information revolution practically every bit of it became available to billions of users. We 'google' everything, from basic scientific facts, to biographies of movie stars, to cooking recipes . We got, as one of the great Information revolutionaries Bill Gates phrased it 'information at your finger tips'.

The two most basic needs of humans, since ancient times, are bread and spectacle. With advent of Information technologies the movies, theater productions, concerts and football matches (the analog of gladiator fights in Ancient Rome) came to our homes, first by means of disks and tapes containing digitized information, TV sets, and now directly to our 'smart' hand-held devices.

The production processes are also fundamentally changing - thousand of factory workers are replaced by tens of engineers and technicians. As any major change in the society, this is both a very promising and troubling development. The productivity of automated plants can be much higher. But what happens to workers who don't have the skills, the knowledge to participate in the new world of Information technology?

And of course, Information technology, as any technology, is used as a tool of war. Computers flight a plane, guide missiles, plan military attacks and defense. But there is more to it. Since our lives, the industrial production, energy production and distribution, all forms of communication and control systems are heavily dependent on computers and networking, disrupting information infrastructure of a country, 'cyber warfare', can be as devastating as using 'old' weapons of mass destruction.

But information revolution is profoundly changing not only the industrial sphere replacing accountants, secretaries, factory workers, and pilots. It is intruding more and more upon the area that long seemed exclusively the domain of human mind. From disease diagnostics to driving cars, to playing chess - more and more computers with Artificial Intelligence software are threatening to take our place. Some people are just as scared as were manual workers when in the onset of Industrial revolution machines were pushing them out. Among them are some of the most influential minds of our times: perhaps the most famous physicist Stephen Hawking, the leading modern inventor-industrialist Elon Musk and even ... Bill Gates (!).

“I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence,” Gates wrote. “First, the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that, though, the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern.”

Elon Musk’s remarked that artificial intelligence represents “our biggest existential threat” as a species and that toying with AI is akin to “summoning the demon.”

'Stephen Hawking went as far as saying that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” especially since “humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”

Perhaps the next phase of Information Revolution, Artificial Intelligence, is indeed as dangerous as they say. Or, perhaps, they are just growing old and are afraid, as old people often are, of the unpredictable future. Most people have no choice, they have to simply wait and see what happens.

But you - you have a choice. You can be afraid of the future, or you can make it. You can be afraid of the unpredictable and fast developments in information technologies - or you can learn the information technologies of the present and create new ones. You can become the next victim of Information Revolution - and benefit from it. A master or a slave - the choice is yours.