Anni Rowland-Campbell speaking at the University of Southampton/Digichamps ©2016

Anni Rowland-Campbell speaking at the University of Southampton/Digichamps ©2016/cc by-nc

At the Web Science Institute seminar held earlier this week WST board advisor, Anni Rowland-Campbell spoke on the socio-technical changes that are happening in the world as a result of the Social Machine, which began with the World Wide Web. The talk focused on Tim Berners-Lee proposal of the Web where the “people do the creative work and the machine does the administration”1. Setting out to challenge this, Rowland-Campbell argued that the balance between “man” and “machine” is changing, and the idea of humanity is changing as a result. In her talk she provides a number of suggestions on how this symbiotic relationship between man and machine may play out. 

1 Berners-Lee, T and Fischetti, M, Weaving the Web: The original design and ultimate destiny of the World Wide Web, Harper Collins, New York, 1999.