Do we need a global brain?

Abstract

The new trend of Pervasive Computing, based on massively deployed wireless sensor and actuator networks, will enable gathering data about the world with an unprecedented accuracy, and using them to influence this world - both hu-man beings and their environment. Among many application fields, the health support system will permit the measurement and transmission of vital health parameters and the exertion of externally controlled actions on the human body. Such sys-tems provide evident benefits, but also pose significant new risks of misuse by totalitarian governments or criminals. In addition, "good" governments, in their effort to improve the lives of their citizens, may be tempted to rectify the conduct of those citizens, ignoring their wishes, and to enforce it with new means of total surveillance. This Global Brain, controlled by authorities advised by experts, and too complex to be overseen by the general public, may lead to a revival of the Rule of the Philosophers foreseen by Plato, a Brave New World where democracy is just an empty shell.