This is highly consequential. We inhabit a moment in history at which it is wise to consider how the networks are penetrating our daily lives. Computer networks are effectively bound up with national economies, with the communications infrastructures, and with environmental monitoring and assessment activities. The scale of our information technologies requires us to expand the levels at which we assess its impact on our lives, our societies, and our common future. The technology that is embedded deeply within our lives has become a social environment.
Technology can greatly enhance our security and well-being, as well as enrich our experience.
It is imperative to reflect on how the systems we develop add layers to our interactions with the world. The danger is that we will create an artificial environment which is unresponsive to environmental indicators. If this happens, and it may be a secular process already well underway, then we risk drifting into marginal adaptive fitness. We cannot merely trust that the technological environment with which we are surrounding ourselves will be benign simply because we intended it to be so. For that matter, perhaps not everyone's intentions are so benevolent.