Global Course of the Information Revolution: Technological Trends

摘要

RAND has undertaken a three-year effort, sponsored by the National Intelligence Council, to study some of the key changes expected worldwide as a result of the continuing information revolution. A first conference in a series was held November 16-18, 1999 in Washington, DC, concentrating on potential political, economic, and social consequences of this revolution, with special attention focused on differential impacts possible in differing countries, regions, and cultures of the world. A second conference in this series, reported on here, was held May 10-12, 2000, in Pittsburgh PA. It concentrated on technical trends in the information revolution, focusing in particular on the resulting new artifacts and services that might become widespread during the next 20 years, thereby affecting individuals, organizations, nations, and cultures worldwide. This conference attempted to get beyond Moore's Law (an expected doubling of the density of integrated circuits on a silicon chip every 18 months or so), to ask about specific artifacts, devices, and services that might be developed, with attention to those likely to have differential impacts on various countries, regions, and cultures of the world. The conference was designed to illuminate the assumptions underlying various predictions and estimates, so that these could be examined for mutual consistency and likelihood.