Terraforming cyberspace

Like preterraformed Mars, cyberspace currently offers a lonely, dangerous, and relatively impoverished environment for software agents. Although promoted as collaborative, agents do not easily sustain rich, long-term, peer-to-peer relationships, let alone any semblance of meaningful community involv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computer (Long Beach, Calif.) Calif.), 2001-07, Vol.34 (7), p.48-56
Main Authors: Bradshaw, J.M., Suri, N., Canas, A.J., Davis, R., Ford, K., Hoffman, R., Jeffers, R., Reichherzer, T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Buildings
Collaboration
Communities
Computer information security
Cyberspace
Dangerous
Grid computing
Human
Humans
Information superhighway
Intelligent agent
Internet
Mars
Peer to peer computing
Pervasive computing
R&D
Research & development
Security
Software agents
Terraforming
Web and internet services
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Summary:Like preterraformed Mars, cyberspace currently offers a lonely, dangerous, and relatively impoverished environment for software agents. Although promoted as collaborative, agents do not easily sustain rich, long-term, peer-to-peer relationships, let alone any semblance of meaningful community involvement. Rather than just building smarter and stronger agents, researchers must transform the wasteland of cyberspace itself, making it a safe and habitable environment for both agents and humans. The paper discusses how the basic infrastructure for beginning a terraforming effort is becoming more available. Designed specifically to exploit next-generation Internet capabilities, grid-based approaches provide a universal source of dynamically pluggable, pervasive, and dependable computing power, while guaranteeing levels of security and duality of service that will make new kinds of applications possible.
ISSN:0018-9162
1558-0814
DOI:10.1109/2.933503