Eternal, Data, Decay
<p>The speculative scenario I am developing in this essay is that the desire for immortality is a key driver behind digital data technologies. The storage of computational information, i.e., data, is conceptualized as eternal; by itself, data does not decay. The hardware containing the data decays, but, due to lossless duplication, information can stay immortal. This feature of digitality has tremendous advantages and is a key to the success of information technology. But the notion of data as eternal creates both social and natural fallacies based on a simplistic model of knowledge as storage. Memory might be more than bytes on a silicon chip. Generalization, abstraction, and forgetting are key components of thinking. I am arguing that we will need a new concept, a new model of data for a sustainable and socially-minded collective future…</p>
Authors: Kim Albrecht
Editors: Sarah Donderer, Hannah Jung, Jens Lutz
Copy Editor: Petra Kaiser
Graphic Designer: rapp.design, Leonie Rapp
Part of: Driving the Human