Cerf holds the title of internet evangelist and vice president at Google.
He told the Data Summit that the internet has always proceeded on the principle of “permissionless innovation: Larry Page and Sergey Brin didn’t go around and talk to all the internet service providers before they launched their Google search engine.
However, transnational agreements will be necessary in the sphere of e-commerce if a digital signature is to become as legally binding as a wet signature.
'Unethical'
Cerf described as unethical the practice of releasing software with bugs which could be prevented.
“I wish I could tell you we can write software with no bugs but I would be lying to you. We have to be able to update software. On the other hand these devices need to be assured that the software they are downloading is coming from the right place and has integrity.”
In the internet we flatten everything, he said, but we end up not knowing which authority to trust hence the rise of self-diagnoses through ‘Doctor Google’.
The dilemma stands that the internet creates capital without creating jobs and that artificial intelligence will destroy even more employment.
“Training for new work is another big issue. We’re all living longer. We may have eighty years of career if we live to one hundred years old. It’s pretty clear that we can’t learn all that we need to know to be productive workers in the first twenty years of our lives.
“So … we’re going to have to keep learning new things and the internet can be one of the avenues through which this re-training can be done, so we can stay relevant over a longer period of time.”
Cerf also spoke on his pet theme of data preservation in the context of out-of-date formats.
“I am very concerned about digital information and how long it is actually going to be around. Bytes shouldn’t wear out but they do. The readers [devices] don’t last even if the media is still there. The applications, the operating systems and the hardware may not be available fifty, one hundred or even five years from now.”
If devices are not reliable, nobody wants them he said.
Data black hole
He spoke of the danger of a data black hole and warned that it is safer to keep a hard copy of anything precious.
In the discussion panel on the people-centred internet, Eisenhower fellow David Bray said that a data ombudsman is needed to keep track of what data is teaching the machine.
Shari Langemak of Philips pointed out the danger of insurance providers knowing through data the exact risk profile of each customer and therefore knowing exactly how much each patient will cost in the future.
Cerf said that critical thinking is more vital than ever as sources of information are assessed for accuracy and trustworthiness.