50 Years After Internet Conception, Dark Side Stirs Fear:
On October 29, 1969, professor Leonard Kleinrock and a team at the University of California at Los Angeles got a computer to "talk" to a machine in what is now known as Silicon Valley.
The event gave birth to a network that later became known as the internet—hailed at first as a boon to equality and enlightenment, but with a dark side that has emerged as well.
As UCLA marks the anniversary, Kleinrock is opening a new lab devoted to all things related to the internet—particularly mitigating some of its unintended consequences on the internet which is now used by some four billion people worldwide.
"To some point it democratizes everyone," Kleinrock told AFP.
"But it is also a perfect formula for the dark side, as we have learned."
So much is shouted online that moderate voices are drowned out and extreme viewpoints are amplified, spewing hate, misinformation and abuse, he contended.
"As engineers, we were not thinking in terms of nasty behavior," said Kleinrock, 85.
"I totally missed the social networking side. I was thinking about people talking to computers or computers talking to computers, not people talking to people."
The new Connection Lab will welcome research on topics including machine learning, social networking, blockchain and the internet of things, with an eye toward thwarting online evils.
[...] While marking its 50th anniversary, the internet as we know it is a "rowdy teenager" in the eyes of Internet Society chief technology officer Olaf Kolkman.
"The internet has done more good than harm," Kolkman said.
"The biggest challenge we have in front of us is that while we cope with big problems enabled by global connectivity that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water."
| Links |
printed from SoylentNews, 50 Years After Internet Conception, Dark Side Stirs Fear on 2024-04-25 20:01:29