As an IT professional, born the same year as Tim Berners-Lee, his recent book “This is for Everyone” is a fascinating tour of computer science. It is very technology focused, but it is also an intriguing social history, and an insight into how Tim’s ethical perspective has shaped the World Wide Web, and arguably the world, for the better.
The internet is so woven into our lives, for many it will seem as if it had always been there. The technology building blocks were already in place in the 1980’s, so when the web was officially “born” in 1989 the groundwork was done. In many ways the web is technically very simple, and therein lies some of its success – it is easy to replicate, and it brings multiple computer systems together in an elegant and effective way. What Tim added into the mix was an insistence that no-one should own the web – the technical specifications should be free for all to adopt.
The initial web was based on a simple markup language for text (HTML), a browser that could format text, and an addressing structure (URL) that meant one document could link to any other document on the web. In its first form, the web was just text, and not the various multimedia we are so used to. Nevertheless, it caught on quickly, and the number of interconnected systems using the web grew rapidly.
A little over a decade later the commercialisation of the web started – companies like Amazon, Google and YouTube were born, followed by social media like Facebook. Commercialisation brought huge challenges, as commercial companies wanted to own segments of the web, but Tim held out on the principle that the web itself should be free. In fact, the commercial success of the web is almost entirely dependent on the free underpinnings of the web.
The web pervades our daily lives now. Even if you never use a computer, the services you use almost entirely depend on the internet. Even in the most rural areas of Africa you can get access to the internet. As a technology it would be impossible to un invent it now.
Of course the web brings its own tragedies. Social media, which in its earliest form was a benign way of people connecting, has largely become an addictive platform for advertisers – you might think you are a Facebook user, but in reality you are the product and the real users are the advertisers competing for clicks. Social media has created the attention economy, created terrible addictions, and warped our politics.
The other great challenge of the web is the data circulating about us – commercial enterprises track our web behaviour and target us. Worse than that, political operators do the same, with more insidious intent. To a large extent we have little or no control over the data circulating about us – the only way out today would be to not use the web.
Tim is on a mission to rectify some of the above. On data, he is pioneering a way that would allow us to control all our own personal data and ensure we can limit who accesses it – the data would be held in a wallet that you control and allow others to access. He also has great hopes that AI can move us from a world where our use of the web is driven by our own needs and aspirations rather than driven by the attention-grabbing and attention-shaping that the web facilitates today – he talks about creating an intention economy, not an attention economy.
That shift, like the early days of the web, will rely on open standards and no commercial control of any segment of the web. It is good to hear that there are many technologists out there, not just Tim, keen to see the web grow and develop, and for AI to be a beneficial addition. Let’s hope they succeed. And maybe you can do your own bit – when you find yourself doom-scrolling through social media, maybe wake up to the fact that YOU are the product and helping to fund commercial organisations that don’t really care about you, just your clicks.