The Stakeholder Debate - published by the Guardian in 1996
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Do We Have To Die 100%?
Ever since our species could reason we have had an overriding urge to learn and understand, and to pass on our knowledge from one generation to the next. For thousands of years this was feasible as all of our knowledge could easily be contained in one human brain. Father would teach son, mother would teach daughter and each generation would add a little more expertise, a little more knowledge. Only a few thousand years ago it became necessary to record our information on cave walls, stone, clay tablets, skins and parchment. We had reached a critical epoch - the point at which all human knowledge could not be contained by one brain. Specialism and co-operation was vital as no individual could do it all, compete and survive. This growing sophistication and competition promoted communication, distinct crafts, professions, barter and trade. The process was repeated at progressively shorter intervals as the bifurcation of skills and our increasing dependence on information, communication, technology and each other, took hold.

Today, our problem is acute. It is no longer possible to be an expert anything other than a very new and virginal topic. For example, just 500 years ago it was possible to be an outstanding author, artist, engineer and scientist at the same time. Even 30 years ago it was possible to understand a telecommunications network in minute detail. Every aspect of transmission, switching, management, operations and billing could be understood by just one engineer. Today, it is just possible to know a little about a billing system - and not much else. The same is true of motor cars, domestic appliances, military systems, computers and the information world. Who understands all of it? No one. We have to rely on abstractions - a higher level picture. Fortunately we do not have to understand the physics and chemistry of a safety match to use one - but someone somewhere does.

Despite all of this specialisation and an exponential growth in knowledge, we still see the rise of experts and people of outstanding ability who are able to master more of a topic and contribute more than the average. Unfortunately, being mortal, they die and their expertise and insights are lost for all time. The question is, can we capture their expertise, their very presence and hold on it for future generations and posterity? Do they have to be 100% dead?

Multimedia holds out an interesting prospect of being able to capture the words and wisdoms of any individual, or group of humans, with the aid of the spoken and printed word supported by still and animated pictures. Simulations, videos and still pictures can be combined with words and people to make a rich teaching and learning environment. Now suppose that as some great teacher gives lectures and interacts one-on-one with students, the very essence of this expertise could be captured in the following manner. As student asks a question, they could be recorded along with the response and any debate. Over a period of years it is feasible to capture over 9 5per cent of all the questions every likely to be asked along with a rich variety of responses tailored to meet the needs of individual and problematic students. How difficult then would it be to construct an artificial persona of this great mind? Might we sit and listen and watch a lecture long after the death and still be able to interact in a meaningful way by merely asking questions that are answered in a variety of ways.

It is interesting to reflect that this vision is partially available with today's crude CDs of a mere 630 MBytes storage capacity. We can already visit the Natural History Museum and receive an adequate description of Barionix or the derivation of the word dinosaur. Granted, the presentation and style are somewhat limited by the medium, but the first indication of what might be done is with us. Our rudimentary artificial intelligent systems can already cope with the filtering and assembly of the right slices of dialogue, animation and pictographic representations on demand, just triggered by a well-phased question. What is required, is a little more intelligence to filter what we require from a rather ill posed question or proposition, and perhaps an ill posed set of reply options. If only the medium could respond to: "Describe a dinosaur named Barionix", or "Was Barionix a dinosaur, and if so, what was it like?" Whilst it is easy for you and I to recognise what is required and assemble a suitable answer, for an AI system this is currently a formidable task. But not for too long, a further 5 years may see such a task not only solvable, but solvable with a modest amount of computer power.

Another feature that will be required to make the medium readily accessible is a voice input, output system that is conversational. We can already voice command telephones and computer based interfaces, but to voice access in a wholly human manner is still difficult. However, we can look forward to an adequate and workable solution within the next 5 to 10 years. So we have before us almost all of the technology and every prospect of being able to create a medium that gives access to human knowledge, expertise and skills that died long ago. We are thus approaching the Superman paradigm where his access to his entire history, Mother and Father was possible with a single crystal in his Fortress of Solitude. Our crystal is currently the 630 MByte CD ROM, and so may be the next generation with 6 GByte, but after that it could indeed be nearer a crystal. Only a decade from now a CD-ROM size device is likely to have a capacity of over 60GBytes. A further decade could well see a capacity of over 6TBytes, which is on a par with the human mind and in excess of Commander Data's brain on the Starship Enterprise. We really will then be able to create an interactive 'Joel' of human proportion and ability.

In many respects our ancestors yearned for immortality through their works of art, writings and understanding passed down the generations. Many of their names have been lost, many of their thoughts and ideas have disappeared, but their spirit lives on and is sustained as each generation effectively stands the shoulders of their predecessors. The CD ROM is probably the first medium that we have produced that allows a much closer step toward immortality with the recording of our thoughts, gestures and in some respects, intelligence. As the next generations of storage media are developed, we will rapidly approach a time when our expertise, knowledge and persona can truly be captured for all time.

Just imagine the solution to Fermat's last problem, not scribbled on a piece of paper and lost for ever, but recorded for all time. Alternatively, the many works and ideas of Newton that never saw the light of day. Perhaps, more powerfully we should contemplate the electronic merging of personalities, works and ideas with artificial intelligence systems able to access all of these works and coalesce the myriad of concepts and results that currently escape us due to our limited human ability and memory. Perhaps in future, none of us will die, but our very essence, an echo of our passing will live on. Perhaps then we will become a hybrid being of total experience, learning and understanding continuously incremented by the inputs and interactions of a peripheral work force of individual human minds working in unison with us. At 49 years old, and another decade or two to realise this world, I might just see you there.