Kevin Kelly: The next 5,000 days of the web

www.ted.com At the 2007 EG conference, Kevin Kelly shares a fun stat: The World Wide Web, as we know it, is only 5,000 days old. Now, Kelly asks, how can we predict what's coming in the next 5,000 days?

[@kristalcornwell]

I will never get over how accurate this prediction was

[@KanoujAdhikary]

Please make a part 2 of this. Its been almost 5000 days since this video was released.

[@kristalcornwell]

This is one of my favorite teds of all time we have AI now ffs. we need another

[@AlfredoBarriga]

I still use this Talk in my classroom, and make students identify which predictions have actually happened and which have not, as well as which have come around in a different way, and which have come around that were not even thought of back then. Interesting exercise!

[@wolfpackforlife]

i agree with Benjamin. I live in the middle east and visit and work with Nepaleese and Bengaleese people. They make about 100 dollars a month if they work abroad and about 1 dollar a day if they work in their own country. They save a months salary and buy smartphones. it is very standard and now as an American, there is no distinct advantage other than that as Americans we get far better educations since the time we were born due to better quality of life. But that too will change.

[@Kynareth6]

Kevin Kelly is a wise man. EG2 was February 1-4 2007, 4000 days ago. We are now at 4/5. And here I am, walking around my room, writing this inside Gear VR using Oculus Browser and motion controller. There was undoubtedly a substantial progress since then. I want to see how the World will be after next 1000 days. Internet of Things is beginning now but it won't mature until late 2030s.

[@PWNDer1337]

It is amazing to watch this in 2013 and realize all the things that this guy was right about.

[@Ricardolassala]

It reminds me of the David Brin's cristal-clear foresight, as he described the development of the World Wide web on his novel "EARTH", an amazing book he wrote back in the 80's.

[@morky14]

also i think the random graphics really dumbed down the lecture. they kinda got on my nerves

[@dansow333]

I'm kind of amazed of having been able to watch that just now...

[@RemcoPeggeman]

Most commenters are missing the point that this talk was given in 2007... We are closer to the year these predictions are for (~2020) than the year these predictions were given.

[@AcidProblemChild]

Its funny he talks about the need for transparency and the leaving of privacy issues. I see this happening on a large scale with popular/personal culture, and through leaks on a political level (wikileaks, PRISM/snowden, etc). Yet a shift is needed where the popular culture and political level meet or merge and everything gets shared and disbands at the same time. Transparency on a personal level I am all for when personal means political at the same time. The boundary between them is illusory.

[@riversonthemoon]

This reminds me of Isaac Asimov's Multivac, a super-advanced computer that appeared in many of his short stories. He went even further than Kelly in his short story The Last Question. He also predicted all of this, and described in with remarkable accuracy in an essay called The Fourth Revolution. I read it in a book called Towards Tommorow, but the original article appeared in a magazine called Saturday Review on 24 October, 1970!!

[@ArmandoVieira]

Great talk. Just love Kevin Kelly visions

[@sammedia3d]

Exactly! He was so right! Watching this on Oct. 2020 and i cant wait to see what the next 5K days will bring ( 42 )

[@Paulginz]

It already does. The near-0 cost of communication that the web has brought is being used every day by all kinds of activist groups that would be limited to local organisation with older technology. One of the most visible changes is in free information being distributed about the misdeeds of governments and corporations, through organisms like the blogosphere and wikileaks.

[@soundacious]

2007 Kevin Kelly got me spooked.

[@nealkriesterer]

Wow, at 6:45 he predicts Chromebook. That was pretty amazing!

[@crudhousefull]

Nobody will ever be okay with total dependence on something that is controlled by someone else. There will always be a market for independent processing and storing devices. This is the problem with most of the sci-fi people, they assume that the human psyche will all of a sudden be okay with dependence. What is the rationale they use for this? Even if there were unifications for providing this sort of processing and storing, there will be several suppliers

[@claudees]

Lovely video. Thanks for sharing. Now my question is where and who stores this huge amount of information which is viewed by a trillion people? Any answers?

[@rudy4histo]

Awesome, thanks for posting!

[@truzzman]

rudy4histo first?

[@pmwfotos]

hello and good moring my favourite teacher @treyratcliff , thank you so much for reminding me of kevin kelly in 2008, xoxo, GENIUS...omg i didn't know he had something to do with The Matrix

[@tarohoa]

interesting, as single celled organisms began to interact and communicate with each other they linked up and became multi cell organisms, will it work similarly for us?

[@ssomerville9741]

I am watching this in May 2020, totally true!!!

[@FranciscoEspinosa366]

TED we want an spanish version pleaseeee!!

[@ralphschraven339]

Mr. Kelly seems to have correctly predicted most developments in the Internet. Cloud-sharing has kept increasing in popularity and indeed we now have cloud-based operating systems. Data sharing is becoming the norm: any large company now has an API. Moreover, data science is becoming increasingly popular and the standardization of data collection, processing and sharing is developing rapidly. Now, I will share with you my views on how the speaker depicted the Internet. His Matrix-like reference to the Internet as a unified being has obviously attracted the attention of some lunatic conspiracy theorists. Whether or not you see a network as an organism in the literal sense or in the metaphoric sense is only a matter of philosophy and not a matter of semantic. Defining the Internet as an organism with data collection, data processing and data sharing as its central means of functioning is equivalent to defining it as the abstract term that denotes the interaction between persons, their computers and their programs. Both point to the same thing; there is no difference in meaning. So no matter what interpretation you prefer, realize none of them point to esoteric views such as that all people are part of a collective conscience or other purely speculative psycho-analytical crap. So please, do not resort to claiming the speaker is trying to promote conspiracy theorists when he is only defining the internet in terms of other, similar structures such as the brain or single-cell organisms. Acknowledge that he did not refer to humans in this regard. Consequently, stop identifying the speaker's claims as belonging to some conspiracy theory.

[@CrispyClaire]

Me too! I see you love TED videos as well... see, this is an illustration of what he's talking about ;)

[@Catty_Wampus_]

Very exciting! But it makes me wonder how long it will be before people start longing for privacy again. Will Kodak cameras make a comeback? That certain level of anonymity is what attracts most to the internet. I don't like the idea of everyone knowing everything about me and what I do. At what level do we retain individuality? SBernard

[@Jotto999]

An excellent talk.

[@phicubed]

I would go along with the idea of being completely transparent for personalization of the web for me. There are still some things the new 'web' would not know about me because I wouldn't want it to. But if this web was personalized for me every time I stepped out my door or logged on to it or drove it somewhere, I could see a personal benefit in having information that pertains to my life, relevant to my situation in life simply accessible anytime anywhere on the planet. Would make life simpler.

[@Reido2828]

Tell em more information about your prediction please?

[@sentdex]

HAH. "The Cloudbook" This guy should have patented that idea. 6:45 ish

[@skoob6969]

what about when they start to charge for only certain website that you can go to in 2012?

[@ncn21]

sooo tough to understand! im confused!

[@Mexiborg]

Amazing! Absolutely amazing.

[@ironmangler]

You mean like they do in most hypothetical discussions/presentation? >_> Flying cars were a perfectly viable technology around century turn-over. The problem is that there just no market for them, and infrastructure is invested in highways and roads, not in aircontrol systems. So you get a better ROADcar, instead of a skycar. Part of that is also because of the evolution of human rights. Skycars, compared to roadcars are very unsafe if people are allowed to pilot them. (think of drunk pilots)

[@SycosenMerihem]

This talk could be put into Metal Gear.

[@Weephoot]

That's not certain. the internet will always grow, but we always got a chance of nuclear holocaust, WW3, world starvation etc etc. the human population may be even smaller than it is now in 2040

[@minimumcool]

6:30 my gamebpy advance sp, didn't have internet on it... I'm jealous.

[@etiennealive]

Mr Kevin Kelly talks about sacrifising individual characterestics for becoming transparent. which is nesecary to cope with our I.T. inventions. This goes against a principle of nature ; Man can not stand being meaningless. Each person searches for it's own individual perception of nature. The nature of information is, that it looks inwards. the perception of that information determs the descisions made in the future. There by an inwards invention like I.T. should never detrm life in any subject

[@apokalupsis3]

The validity of this presentation is not dependent on whether you accept the referent 'machine' to describe the phenomenon which this author speaks of and which is empirically evident.

[@Reido2828]

Where did that come from? How can one predict that? And if it comes wrongf then what?

[@floresorellana]

@aikighost well this is kind of late (2 years) but I happen to live in one of the poorest countries this side of the globe (El Salvador) and most Every one (from the guy who sells coconuts, to the guy who is cutting the coconuts have a phone) you can get a new phone for $10 (pretty basic) and you can buy airtime from $0.25. It is just amazing.

[@ratholin]

oh it's an old sort of idea. Common in science fiction. I think there was a dilbert cartoon about that too. I also read it in an old spider robinson novel from the 90's

[@vinovampire]

Do we really "have to get better in believing the impossible," or do we need to learn that we have NO clue what will happen in the future based on anything we've known in the past? I'd venture to say that the second lesson is much more important. These vague predictions are no more likely to be true in 5,000 days than any other guess, except perhaps if one were to say that the future will most likely be different from today.

[@mrkvamaster]

Total personalization through total transparency... I don't know if I like that one...

[@thekevinkellyshow]

same here, skatemore ... there's so many of us, kell' ... still, we are the only ones ... * A Kevin Kelly

[@heyheyhey0220]

Great idea, however tech progresses in jumps and starts; the net has largely completed it's start. it will continue to become begger, but i think he overestimates the rate it'll be

[@Patachu666]

but it is still here !

[@irishwirstwatch]

We may actually skip that third step. To me it seems unnecessary, with the creation of things like Google glasses we can immerse ourselfs in the web's information all the time. Then we will be codependent. That is the next step.

[@jacobzaki9715]

Roughly 5000 days later: His predictions are eerily accurate...

[@blockracer]

We won't need to be completely transparent if we use the Project Safe network. They also are at the forefront of making all computers work as "one" organism.

[@lebasson]

I agree, especially compared to the average speaker at TED, this guys just stammering on about 'TEH FUTURE'! I find his initial premise (where he states that 10 years ago nobody could fathom what the web would be today) ironic since he himself seems totally unable to look beyond what's happening today. Imho he's just reeling at what's going on around him and what he's talking about what it will be like in 10 years is actually what's going on right now.

[@davidleitman]

maybe one day we will have transferable neurologies, it's very strange to contemplate

[@thatidiotchris2645]

Zuck must've watched this back in 2007..... KK is nailing so many terms & ideas that are NOW just being popularly promoted (by carpet-bagging hacks....)

[@evilgeniusfin]

His number of 8 Terabytes a second can't be right. A single Cisco CRS-1 can handle 12 Terabytes(96 Tbps). I find it hard to believe one single device could honestly handle the entire Internet simultaneously. Depending on how one measures the through put of the internet. I'm sure the number is actually 2-5 orders of magnitude larger than that.

[@ForestTaber]

The end of Net Neutrality might be a part of the second "5,000 days".

[@ironmangler]

Funny, I always thought more along the lines of a heli-car in that aspect. Anyways, the point is, he might be right, or he might be wrong. I think it's very hard to say one way or the other. What WOULD be the next major innovation of the internet? More interconnectivity with more devices is almost a given, but in terms of functionality... Personally I don't really have a hypothesis but things like more intelligent search engines sound almost a natural consequence of what is already happening.

[@yiyaowang17]

Happening now

[@FreeAsInFreeBeer]

At 19:16 it seems he list the things that will grow large, we need to share (free licenses), we need a smart interface (like the Ubiquity add-on to firefox is starting to explore) and we need everything on the web (hopefully what the Google OS will do). The future seems as a good place to live. =) BTW: A good talk and a good video, but your slideshows is pretty bad.. ;)

[@avalonroad]

I can't say this about the war, or oil, or world economics, or religion, but I can say it here and now... I am simultaneously TERRIFIED AND FASCINATED by whats happening in technology right now, and the connections it makes. We as a people have never been this before! You are more likely to communicate with some one from another country than you are you next door naber!

[@microland]

This already exists but we are not conscious of it, yet.

[@jarduli]

and screensavers instead fo lullabies

[@ZeusATP]

Turbo-lag? Hell yeah......why cant we have instant spool?

[@grimshawr]

yes.

[@smartiboi]

some of it was rambling but he did make a couple valid points although i disagree with his statement that the humans will be an extension of the machine. the machine is not conscious. it can anticipate action but it cannot act unless there was an original command. the ai aspect of the web will obviously be enhanced within the next 5000 days but thinking we will be an extenstion of the machine is a very cynical way of looking at it

[@Finiras]

you could also pm me, there is no 500 digit limit there.

[@xavieramont]

...but there IS a name for this 'machine'. It's called a Jupiter Brain! I dislike what he says about unifying social identities. I rather enjoy having multiple online personalities with their own circles of friends, and the privacy to keep them separate. When everything starts turning into computronium like he says, I wonder if people like me will get split into pieces...

[@Lihinel]

Your statement is wrong, while the computation power is doubling every 12-18 month, the energy consumption isnt. Oh and btw there is plenty of energy, we get literaly hit in our face by it. If we could convert 1% of the sunlight hitting the earth, all our energy problems would have been solved. And yes, those technologys are getting cheaper and way more efficent. (Third Generation solar cells)

[@etiennealive]

@UnluckyGambler NO !!!!! But it shouldn't be an over dominant factor of the information in the brain.

[@MyDearWormwood]

Watching August 2022…..and a spandex jacket, one for everyone.

[@cynicaster]

I don't people will like this transparency thing. But then again if you boil a frog slowly enough...

[@isselman2000]

If and when the internet becomes as complex as the human brain, why can't it develop consciousness?

[@tardesnegras]

What are you afraid of? What do you wonna hide? If we are good citizen, then there is nothing to be afraid of... Can't wait till that day comes!

[@42867Goat]

One Machine... One Ma- SKYNET!

[@lampshade452]

Sorry you feel that way. Thanks anyway. Have a nice day. :)

[@giantman]

Sweet Juice!

[@aikighost]

Only if you assume everyone has a phone. Not everyone lives in the first world most people in the world live on less than $5 a day.

[@lordtalon69]

There have been several good shows done about this concept. Stargate sg-1 had a episode where everyone had a uplink connected to there head to access unlimited information. They were brainwashed into killing themselves little by little as the forcefield protecting there city was losing power. The outer limits had a show very similar a blue tooth type device was attached to the head to access any information needed. One man withouht the device shut the system down to get back to human roots.

[@morky14]

well hes explaining it in a simplistic way for the average person to understand, not everyones an expert

[@kingrune111]

WE'LL CALL IT YIVO!

[@WormfingerBMK]

We have digitally created our own God, who whe can actually interact with and he'll help us do anything, find everything, hear and see everything. With it advancing so fast I can see it protecting us from everything through science. This was breathtaking.

[@Kevin-xs8xn]

notes the internet is only 5000 days old, what will the next 5000 days look like? “it’s amazing, and we’re not amazed” we’re basically creating one giant machine, and it’s the strongest/most reliable machine we’ve ever built all our machines are portals into the one machine (every smartphone, every laptop, every IoT) 3 changes: 1) embodiment, 2) re-structuring, 3) co-dependence copies have no value attention is currency humans are the machine’s extended senses we’re linking data; first the connections were machine to machine, then page to page, now data to data we shouldn’t need to port our friends to each social network, the web should just know “to share will be to gain” no bits will live outside the web (me: early formulation of software eating the world) more notes: kevinhabits.com/ted/

[@aw4704]

Thanks a lot, I have an assignment about this video and you pinned some important things.

[@subach]

There is nothing to fear, you will be absorbed into the one.

[@willycorke]

all this technology converges to an optimum conscieousness

[@vi67]

"Nobody is as smart as everybody."---Kevin Kelly

[@Finiras]

except for whatever organization is maintaining this machine.

[@Glennsharpe0516]

were you serious when you typed this?

[@Mexiborg]

You don't like Kevin Kelly?

[@zeffii]

i'm split about this talk..

[@fabio6697]

If we created the One, who created us?

[@xBlitzerx]

It's a good idea. But if this happens, it will be way to easy to control humanity. Therefore, it's scary.

[@RSKViewsVlogs]

5000 days over! the one missed was about cryptocurrency revolution

[@pacisvelnex]

yes...its called a thesis

[@artisteo]

Moore's Law yo

[@Wamuigi]

What he says may become real. Plus, I think that augmented reality is going to be a big part of it.

[@SeanONilbud]

It's funny to see how confusing the old and senile find the new.

[@BringinSexyBach]

What an interesting video. This "the one" thing sounds really cool, even if it will inevitably destroy the human race. As far as a name for it goes, my vote is definitely for "interwebs".

[@lordtalon69]

The ghost in the machine is inevitable. Both scary and exciting!:)

[@Jddnd]

the way i see it is that the "machine" is gonna become like a thinking human being. further more the machine is gonna become or is like the first technical human made baby. this machine could become the brain source for "irobot's" brain. but i think that this is still on a "baby" stage but it will grow. this is kinda beautiful actually when u think about it and nevertheless how it all started so spontaneously and now is gonna emerge ...just like life it self. i have no words for it.

[@tomp2008]

the man is a true prophet