Reinventing the Kindness Equation
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reinventing-kindness-equation-timothy-holborn/
March 6, 2017
“WWW as a publishing environment produced by the works of leading experts in areas of Science Technology Engineering Arts and mathematics ("STEAM") is not simply rocket-science, it is the underpinning 'state of the art' works that is used, to undertake rocket science and more broadly, to define the rules and means in which we live.”
From the Post-War War II era, Humanity accumulated many advancements from the formation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, first read aloud by Eleanor Roosevelt, through to other illustrations of ‘dignity enshrining’ works in through the growth of the union movement, medical advancements in both areas of capability and policy, alongside education, access to justice (legal aid), shipping, and an array of other important moments in time where decisions were made, forging the foundations of our modern society that we build upon today. The Trust Factory is an event to be held in Perth on the 3rd of April as part of the World Wide Web Festival, to explore how the acts of value based decisions have changed since the pre-www age and the new opportunities in future.
In 1980 OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data were delivered by a group of government experts under the chairmanship of The Hon. Mr. Justice M.D. Kirby, Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission that; “although national laws and policies may differ, Member countries have a common interest in protecting privacy and individual liberties, and in reconciling fundamental but competing values such as privacy and the free flow of information” setting out a series of recommendations “which would help to harmonise national privacy legislation and, while upholding such human rights, would at the same time prevent interruptions in international flows of data.”
In Perth, a campaign set-out to win the America’s Cup and in 1983, Australia II (KA6) famously won, facing off against Dennis Conner sailing aboard ‘liberty’. In 1987 off the coast of Perth, Australia, Dennis Conner and onboard Stars & Stripes, won back the cup as challenger, Four races to nil. At around the same time Richard Heale, was as a lecturer in Western Australian Universities which led to Established “interactive design” courses in 1989 at University of Western Australia as demand for interactive courseware within the mining sector brought about demand for ‘new media’ companies. Meanwhile internationally, two computer scientists developed a solution to resolve the basic problem “how do people from different organisations share knowledge”. Building upon the works of others before them; such as those accomplished by Ted Nelson (hypertext/hypermedia) and Vinton Cerf (internet protocol), the first web-browser was born at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. In December 1991 at the HyperText Conference in San Antonio (Texas USA); the ‘World Wide Web’ proposal put forward by Tim Berners-Lee was accepted only as a poster-session.
Back in Perth, Richard Heale, in 1992, established the Australian interactive Media Industry association (“AIMIA”) whilst in the following year, through the works of those such as Geoff Hudson and Peter Elford, Internet was brought to Australia as the first web-browser ‘NCSA's Mosaic browser’ (released November 1993).
The launch of the netscape browser in 1994, whilst removing the ‘edit’ function built into the original browser by Tim Berners-Lee, led to the explosive growth of the web as those such as Steven Outtrim started amongst the first Web Businesses, Sausage Software providing easy to use website development tools becoming one of the most popular websites at the time with 250,000 hits per day in 1996.
Over the next few years the world wide web grew to become the ‘killer app’ for personal computing. An industry emerged as organisations, institutions, government departments and ministers started to get their first websites. In 1998, Australia hosted for the first time, the world wide web conference (www1998).
In 1999 Tim Berners-Lee published “Weaving the Web: The Original Design and ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its inventor.”. The internet industry grew from being a relatively specialised field to the beginnings of the pervasive online world as executives sought assistance learning how to use email as part of their work demands, whilst early web scientists continued to work on a concept entitled “The Semantic Web”, a concept powered by ‘linked data’, that started gain shape as Scientific American published amongst the first articles by Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila speaking about a web they wanted to develop that understood knowledge representation, a web for knowledge representation.
“The Semantic Web will enable machines to COMPREHEND semantic documents and data, not human speech and writings.” May 17 2001, Scientificamerican.com “the semantic web”
The means to host website connected to databases became easier to produce as courses started to be provided by universities educating a new breed of talent that led to online mail, social networking, e-commerce and the advent of online mapping services such as Keyhole Inc. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when Dave Lorenzini enticed CNN, ABC, CBS and other major news networks to use their sophisticated 3D flyby imagery to illustrate Baghdad Activities, in exchange for on-air attribution of their “KeyHole” platform. In the following year Google Acquired the company forming what is now called ‘Google Earth’.
In 2007 Steve Jobs announced the iPhone. In less than a decade more than 1 billion iPhones have been sold worldwide through a decade of internet powered, economic development that is now inextricably linked to the lives of billions of humans across the world for many, everyday tasks and whilst the availability of mapping on mobile devices changed the nature of discovering places and means of navigating the world around us, the elements of history brought about by a few extraordinary people are still embedded in our web today. The language used to add items to google maps is still called “KML” denoting “Keyhole Markup Language”.
From 2007 OpenLink Software, Founded by Kingsley Idehen brought Semantic Web interfaces to traditional database platforms. From 2007 information about the world, as contributed to sites such as Wikipedia were made available with the help of OpenLink Software to establish some of the first online “linked data” services, DBpedia in 2007. In 2008, at WWW2008, Tim Berners-Lee delivered a Keynote address entitled ‘The Future of Web Applications’ introducing “the web of documents and the web of data” and the use of DBpedia as an instrumental part of progress.
At around the same time (2007) Manu Sporny started to consider how to support payments, as he considered the problem “You couldn’t tell your Web browser something like “I trust the New York Times, let them charge me $0.05 per article up to $10 per month for access to their website”.” Not only would solving this problem require a means to communicate payments, but also a means to identify the parties involved. In 2009 the PaySwarm Community group was formed and in 2011 it was renamed to ‘Web Payments Community Group’ with designs depending heavily on the semantic web technology, Linked Data. Later, whilst debating the special needs of humans in relation to identity instruments and humanitarian principles, the credentials community group was born.
By the early 2010’s the semantic web concept had developed and was rebranded to ‘linked data’ and major global platforms such as Google (2012) and Facebook (2013) incorporated ‘semantic search’ into their platforms, powering web experiences in ways never considered at the time by those involved in establishing the online world, back in the late 90s, whilst unusually also, part of the original design thinking for the world wide web. As portals continued to incorporate ever more expanding libraries of data about humans, the Read Write Web Community Group with the support of Tim Berners Lee and his team, centred around MIT, continued to develop alternatives, first entitled ‘read write web’ embracing a concept entitled ‘socially aware cloud storage’, later redefined as Cross Cloud led by Sandro Hawk of MIT/W3C and SoLiD, led by Tim Berners Lee, the decentralised team were awarded a 1m USD donation by MasterCard to assist in the pursuit to ensure people are able to store and ‘own’ their own data, whilst Tim and a group of Web Scientists continued to develop both an open-data and web science movement.
In Australia, the efforts of Pia Waugh, curating the now internationally celebrated ‘gov hack’ events led to significant development and growth of our local ‘Open Data’ movement as it became an international movement. Internationally, Open data works were later acknowledged and supported by an executive order issued by Barack Obama in 2013 which established an US Government ‘Open Data Policy”.
As the web grew with tools to help people build their own web pages, use online mapping (keyhole), dbPedia and semantic search powered platforms forged the foundations for our emerging artificial intelligence powered web experiences of today, now incorporating ‘smart assistants’ and an ever expanding ‘web of things’ as our ‘web of data’, that those such as dave lorenzini (now working on augmented reality devices and the next version of maps) explains as the emergence of ‘web side worlds, where the world is notated on the web’ considering the challenges of whether, how and what we notate becoming part of the emerging issues ‘web science professionals’ consider.
As decisions made in past become the foundations of the next decade, work continues as the tireless and often thankless undertakings made by arguably, far too few people influence our natural world and the experience of life for those in it. As notions of freedom from surveillance increasingly seem antiquated and as web and computer based solutions continue to indiscriminately replace former paper methods, often without support for many of the underlying properties depended upon by society in our pre-www era, such as receipts, local jurisdiction for agreements or notifications of file contents about citizens, whether they be held here or overseas; and indeed experiences of citizens, such as when ideas of a “machine-readable payslip” only becomes a consideration after what has become described as a ‘robo debt’ crisis, illustrates the choices made to portray less than ideal characteristics.
Did we forget about the foundations upon which we provided the means to bring all of this about? What is needed if we want to ensure we use technology to knowingly build societies we are proud to live in, after our church steeples ceased ringing the bells, that preceded the mobile broadband transmission systems that replaced them. As our society advance seeking to develop to become an egalitarian meritocracy, and as interpretations of ‘personhood’ grow from the days of the Magna Carta, how will the world-wide-web support our shared-values?
Between the 2nd and 9th of April 2017, the 26th International World Wide Web Conference returns to Australia for the first time since 1998 and will be hosted by Perth as part of the Festival of the Web. The series is overseen by the World Wide Web Conferences Committee (IW3C2, which selects the host city three years in advance) and has a long-heritage of facilitating the international means where the future of the web becomes defined.
Speakers at Festival of the Web include a long-list of celebrated contributors to the world wide web, who are coming together to discuss current and future international work items including inclusive decision making for online systems. Through the context of the emergent field of “web science”, a specialised one-day event, “The Trust Factory” is being presented on Monday the 3rd of April 2017. The Trust Factory, delivers lightning talks and roundtable discussions with celebrated local and international leaders including; Pindar Wong (Internet Evangelist, HK.) , Dave Lorenzini (founder KeyHole), Pia Waugh (Founder GovHack), Manu Sporny (Founder Web Payments), David Hyland-Wood (Co-Chair RDF (“linked data”)), Narelle Clark (ACCAN), Allyn Radford (Former IMS Global), Nigel Phair (Centre for Internet Safety), Richard Heale (Founder AIMIA), Andrew Macleod (UN, Red Cross, RioTinto, British/Australian Army, UK/AU Professor & Humanitarian Lawyer).
As new “naturalised interfaces” emerge with an ever more pervasive ‘web of data’, connecting ‘things’, articulating attributes of persona with sensors, credentials, payments and continuous interactions between life and a plurality of network connected devices; the challenges we’ve faced as a society before, pale in comparison to those emerging into the world around us. As Artificial Intelligence continues to activate WWW means to build upon real-world commercial principles to powers institutions, organisations and corporations, who in-turn seek to provide fewer real-world interactions which can lead symptomatically, set aside important needs of humans as citizens.
Basic questions; such as, whether and how a citizen may retain a relationship to the data produced by them, about them; and whether, the total cost of ownership for the digital identity infrastructure may be engineered to become prohibitively expensive for some, to take-part in our societies. In-order to resolve these forms of underlying issues we urgently require a progressive platform for a meaningful values based discussion “in good faith”.
How much should it cost per month to maintain access to your identity? Can you switch providers? Is it reasonable to be living in a world of fake-news - as the issues experienced by humans truly do matter more than the financial performance of a legal entity (“persona ficta”) selling advertising or other energy consuming products and services, how is it reasonable to suggest ‘fake news’ is ok or has no effect on society. How is every living human being on this planet empowered to contribute and be recognised for their contributions to the world around us, as the future sustainability of our planet in ‘the lemon age, where nothing lasts forever - or even a year’ and we have the means to track everyone, everywhere, all the time.
How is society using internet to support the needs of vulnerable people in crisis or whose issues have been otherwise forgotten about for longer than is reasonable, as though they do not matter. What should the new expectations of citizens be for online fairness and budget allocations; as we are all vulnerable when we can no-longer trust in each-other, or the means in which furnish trust to others ‘in good faith’.
As documents become data stored in databases, recording calls, automating systems building records relied upon by institutions how is it we seek to redefine our ‘rule of law’ as timely access to evidence becomes subject to new, data policies across not simply one institution but rather the organisms produced by analysts in plurality. In a world in which we seek to thrive in a society ruled by law, as to grow and contribute to our fullest potential as a valued member of community how do our shared values, such as dignity, apply in these emerging ‘web side worlds’.
The Trust Factory delivers a spectacular line-up of Local and International experts to present upon a basis of their experiences in past and the purpose of such works for our shared future. Throughout the week WWW2017 brings experts from around the world to perth where they will be presenting cutting edge work within the field of linked-data whilst discussing its impacts and opportunities upon the many facets of life in our world, into the future.
In a world with no real secrets, how is it we choose to redefine ‘the kindness equation’ and how do we preserve ‘dignity’ when privacy is being redefined and freedom from surveillance is becoming obsolete. We have now been living in an age where the choices made by our societal leaders are far less limited by our technological capacities.
As directors make choices with pervasive outcomes, without so much as hearing a voice or seeing the expression on a disaffected person's face; what does Trust and Accountability mean and how should WWW support us all. As companies feel no pain, the issues of humans become indiscriminate as vicarious trauma becomes well known.
The Trust Factory breaks down the barriers of considerations by engaging the human debate about the use of technology, as we work to maintain our societies based upon shared-principles and shared-values, as our cities fill with homeless people and communities continue to battle drugs whilst fake news neglects the issues such as mental health and domestic violence that pervasively and indiscriminatory impacts the countless many, in a society where whilst WWW knows the facts - law enforcement still requires victims to supply evidence themselves; and as our society struggles to rationalise the use of energy and the preservation of our natural world as a foundation for ensuring future generations have the opportunity to maintain a healthy life without unnecessary medical costs. The means to gain timely access to important data and how new policy may respond to our modern social challenges, by whomever shall choose to do it, brings with it challenges that rock the foundations in a manner that is not about technology; but rather, the means in which the future of our ‘human factories’ are collaboratively defined upon principles founded upon trust.
We are amongst the last of our species who will remember a world without the web. In the interests of bringing about lasting, positive growth for the future of our species and our natural world, the Trust Factory convenes experts for a once in a lifetime opportunity at the Perth Convention Centre on the 3rd of April 2017 by a collaborative founded upon knowledge of kindness and dignity; which we strive to enshrine for future generations.