In this article, Larry Smarr argues that, with the increasing prevalence of networked sensors in today’s world, “the world gradually becomes programmable.” That is, instead of just having computational omniscience (knowing), we are actually moving towards computational omnipotence (controlling). What an idea, but not inconceivable.

I’m also drawn to this idea of “human sensors.” That is essentially what we’re doing when we report things on Twitter before the media does. The media used to be our sensors, because they were hooked up to the communication “cloud.” Now we all are. That’s just another fancy way of rephrasing “Web 2.0,” but it sounds so different in those words.

Finally, he ends with a really curious hypothesis. We can predict the weather fairly accurately because we have meticulous data on all the major factors affecting weather. Therefore, if we have enough data about human behavior (via networked devices, human sensors, etc.), would we be able to actually forecast human history? Put another way… will we one day be able to see into the future?

Time travel… it could happen yet.