The future is here, wherever that is these days.
Welcome Ananova and Mafiaboy, poster punks for the Digital Age. As the wireless industry makes its uncertain foray into cyberspace, it may want to take note. These guys are the future, not to mention unreal.
Ananova, green hair and big eyes, is the new, Spice Girl-like virtual newscaster on the Net. She lacks the finesse and grace of Diane Sawyer, but has all the herky-jerkiness of Al Gore. I understand Ananova does not yet have the ability to impart to viewers a sense of trustworthiness that is the hallmark of the great ones. But her handlers are working on it.
That Ananova is not imbued with an air of trustworthiness makes her not unlike many folks here in official Washington. She might disagree.
Then there’s Mafiaboy, the 15-year-old Canadian hacker who was nabbed by Canadian cops last week on charges of sabotaging CNN and CNN-hosted Web sites on Feb. 8. Mafiaboy, who unlike Ananova bleeds when cut, represents the first-generation threat to the Net.
Some say the Clinton administration and the high-tech industry put too much emphasis on Mafiaboy and his ilk, when they should be preparing to defend against cyber attacks from next-generation hackers: that is, organized crime and terrorists. But that’s another story.
I’m not sure if Ananova is what Bill Joy, cofounder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, had in mind when penning a thoughtful and provocative Wired magazine article this month that asked whether we are making ourselves obsolete through fast-paced development, deployment and, ultimately, dependence on technology. It is not a rhetorical question.
“As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent,” said Joy, “people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results that man-made ones.
“At that stage,” he continued, “the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.” Comforting thought.
As for myself, I’ve not a clue what the high-tech future holds. But I see at least one possible scenario if Ananova becomes the Next Big Thing. Broadcast executives, having a knack for turning a profit and holding valuable analog TV spectrum with a grip as tight as Little Havana’s embrace on Elian Gonzalez, might become inclined to send Rather, Jennings and Brokaw out to pasture.
I can see it now, Ananova, on wireless PDAs and Web phones everywhere, with the first post-victory interview of Hillary Rodham Clinton this fall.
Eat your heart out, Sawyer.
