THE WORLD WITHOUT COMPUTER POWER

 

 

“We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.”

Stephen Hawking

 

 

 

It is even hard to imagine the world without electricity, computers and technological intelligence. It is the story that will probably never be written but, at the end of the days, it may be the last chapter in the sad book of humankind. We challenge the patience of this planet, we provoke our own common sense and we disrespect the facts that prove us wrong. The human race is nothing but a joke.

After the human brain has invented the artificial brain, it seems that artificial brain has more success in many fields. The humans have problems with logic but machines live through the logical algorithms. The homo sapiens will never achieve to defeat the deep malign soul appetites while the technology recognizes no values and emotions, bad or good, whatever.

Since the world, we know and we live in is the global computer neuronal center, everything is so linked and one neuron can’t work without other one. The international communication, digital cooperation and electricity circulation are merging into the one perfect model of artificial intelligence that coordinates the daily life of people and the worldwide’ s pulse. The Internet as the global network is blood in the veins of technological advanced age. We live through Internet and Internet lives through ourselves. Just the thought about possible Internet crash on the international level brings to us the numerous concerns about the technological apocalypse. What would happen if every computer in the world crashed and never came back? The BBC researched the scary option of losing Internet for a day and came out with the frightening data that 3.5 billion people have an Internet connection, that’s almost a half of the population with the growing rate of around 10 people a second that obtain an Internet. Now, if it is calculated further, according to the Pew Research Centre, a fifth of all Americans use the Internet constantly and 73% use it every day. For Americans and Europeans, based on the latest research, it is impossible to imagine life without the Internet. William Dutton from the Michigan State University wrote in his book “Society and the Internet” :”One of the biggest problems with the internet today is that people take it for granted – yet they do not understand the degree to which we have allowed it to infiltrate almost every aspect of our lives. They don’t even think about not having access to it. But, the internet is not inviolable. In theory, it could be taken away, on a global or national scale, for a stretch of time. Cyberattacks are one possibility. Malicious hackers could bring the internet to a standstill by releasing software that aggressively targeted vulnerabilities in routers – the devices that forward internet traffic. Shutting down domain name servers – the internet’s address books – would also cause massive disruption, preventing websites from loading, for example. Cutting the deep-sea cables that carry vast volumes of internet traffic between continents would also cause significant disruptions by disconnecting one part of the world from another. These cables may not be easy targets for attackers, but they are sometimes damaged accidentally. In 2008, people in the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia were plagued by major internet outages on three separate occasions when submarine cables were cut or interfered with.”

Some governments have kill switches so they can turn on and turn off the Internet as they wish and related to their political interests. The real picture of such actions was during the Arab Spring in 2011, when the despotic regimes limited the Internet to stop protestors being coordinated into the line of resistance. The experts warn that is not so easy for developed country and progressed, opened society to build an effective kill switch because of horizontal and vertical Internet layers.

The serious problem could come from the negative impact of the space on the communication channels. The solar storms could cause the problems in satellites and computer systems. The responsive authorities have already checked and tested the reactions in that case and they are sure that the disruptions would be fixed in short period. The complete study involved the economical outcome for the biggest companies if the Internet went down for a few days. The famous 20 companies that have been analyzed would not face up with the significant financial damage if the breakdown would last up to 4 days. Some scientists believe it would even increase the productivity of workers since they would focus on ignored paper work. The Internet crash would hit small business and blue-collar workers but also would affect the international cooperation and fluctuations of goods and money. With no mercy, the Internet would affect the ordinary people that depend on Internet in their private and business lives. Many of them would experience the distraction, feeling of insecurity, isolation and depression. The majority of people take Internet as the basic need. They manage and direct their lives through the bites of global net. Some work and earn their money from being fit in Internet while others even organize their family schedule via Internet channels of communication. Such Internet is priceless and its breakdown would be a catastrophe.

There is a group of researchers that warn that electrical and technological breakdown would affect the agricultural infrastructure. People could not process the fields since the automatic machinery would not be useful and it takes a time for the workers in agriculture to get back to grow food by hands. The lack of industrial processing of food and water in big cities would cause the big immigrations waves back to the country life. The absence of electricity power and computer support would definitely indicate the problems with distribution of oil and gas and the majority of electronically oriented cars and transport means would collapse. The most important question is also how we would organize the nuclear plants and biohazard laboratories that rely on computer control rather than on human. I guess this issue would be a big crisis itself.

In a longer period of Internet breakdown and technological crash, people would learn to deal with revitalization of old survival logic and forgotten trade. They would have to learn to live without advantage of technology and to accept the reality of feeling isolated, without global information. It is not impossible but it is also not easy, especially for the high-tech generations that have been born understanding the smart phones.

Each time we make our online banking, communicating with our distant friends or sharing the planetary media, we have to think of one simple thing –suddenly, no reception in our technological lives, moved by artificial intelligence and controlled by computer codes. What if that ever happens? It will be a new phase of the humankind. It could be the worst phase ever or the best phase ever, as the temptation that proves us that we can go back to our humanity. In the meantime, it is a good feeling to be the part of cyber civilization but not taking it for granted.