Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive 1997
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When you say something new it may be interesting the first time. But say it three times and you're on your soapbox. Peter Cochrane has Chinese whispers in harness
As a child I became infatuated by the idea of messages in bottles cast into the sea. As I recall, this followed a trip to the cinema where some castaway on an island resorted to this desperate mode of communication, and was ultimately rescued. So, on vacations I would write, carefully fold, and insert my message into a capped bottle. This I would throw into the sea and watch as it disappeared or returned to shore. Suddenly tide and time were tractable, even to a young mind. The final destination and occasional "return to sender" of course remained a mystery.

Twenty years on I was lecturing abroad and become aware of the power of the meme - Richard Dawkins's concept of ideas as imperfect self-replicators. The planting of ideas with a diverse range of people could bring about change in a very powerful way. I discovered that within organisations it is insufficient to have an idea and then set about selling it. When you say something new it may be interesting the first time, and even the second time may still have impact. But say the same thing three or four times and you are on your soapbox, becoming a bore, or running some private agenda. Much better to tell lots of people and get them to sell it for you. An idea subsumed into an organisational culture can become established wisdom rather than a personal crusade.

The problem with this meme propagation process is the time it takes to socialise and move among a large enough group of people to achieve the critical mass necessary for decisions. Twenty years ago, an idea released in America could take a full year to get back to Britain. Curiously, jokes and political satire would travel across the Atlantic in a much shorter time. Very often a few weeks would be sufficient for such volatile memes to spread across the globe. Really useful ideas however were always slower to travel. It was as if speed and longevity were inversely related to usefulness and importance.

Another 25 years and the world has changed significantly. Now experiments see me inserting ideas into talks in America, to find them buzzing around my laboratory, or my screen when I return home. Press, radio, and TV are now faster on the uptake, but faster still is the Net. Memes seem to move at the speed of light to all corners of the planet, and as they do they change. The originator loses control, and the initial constraints and conditions are lost.

In many respects this resembles the propagation of genes in carbon life. However, life's evolution depends on genetic mutation between generations to ensure adaptation to environmental pressures. The higher life forms are born fully configured, but minimally pre-programmed with a very basic set of functions. These are progressively enhanced through a relatively slow learning process with parental protection, nurturing and teaching as the base meme-passing mechanism.

Here then is a new opportunity for silicon systems. Machines might be able to subsume the experience and knowledge of all previous generations directly, to be assembled, configured and pre-programmed ready to function as an experienced adult. They may then be able to advance at a faster rate, like a radio signal compared with a bottle in the sea.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk

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