The technologies of the twenty-first century are bringing to reality the dream of a fully
connected planet. Computers, algorithms and the Internet of Things (IoT) augment
exponentially our capacity to link people, data and systems as never before in history.
Mobile devices, server farms and grids increase their computing power by orders of
magnitude to process staggering masses of data. Refined heuristics profile our
actions, predict our needs and read the source code of our thoughts. Our fridges,
stoves and toasters will be soon talking to each other with no humans in the loop. Will
they also conspire against us, as in a post-Orwellian IoT farm?
The age of connectedness brings an unprecedented promise of exceptionally
distributed data, information and knowledge. Yet, the dystopian nightmare of a
metadata hydra emerging from our data lakes is also looming. Our human–computer
interactions, like Schrödinger cats in sealed boxes, are a blur of possibilities
(so we better try hard to not end up like the cats!).