Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the Web

Kevin Kelly (founding executive editor of Wired magazine) gave an interesting talk at TED.

The lead idea is that the web as we know it today is less than 5,000 days old. And that 10 years ago it was impossible to think that it would going to be as it is now. So, the first lesson of the web is that we have to get better in believing the impossible.

He says that we are going in the direction of having one machine and that this machine it has today – more or less – the size or our brain. But it’s doubling its power every two years! Therefore, by the year 2040 the Web will exceed humanity in processing power. Of course many things (and many impossible things) could happen between now and 2040!

According to his analysis, there will be 3 consequences:

  • embodiement
  • re-structuring
  • codepending

In the next 5,000 days, it’s not going to be ‘the web but only better’. It’s going to be different.

As always in TED: a very interesting talk, with some powerful (even scary) ideas.