Bandwidth constraints and Circuit Switching vs. Packet Switching

What’s this about? Not computer networking. It’s about people. It’s a metaphor.

Elon Musk says we must merge with machines to avoid future irrelevance: "It's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output."[1]

We’re pretty much constrained by our fingers in terms of output, not much so on input due to our sensory organs, particularly vision, Musk adds.

The feasibility of the merger proposal remains to be seen though, as our hardware remains rather fixed.

Could be like plugging the latest nvidia card to a 486 PC. I wonder.

Leave it then. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that our biological apparatus is facing an environment that’s changing too fast to be coped with by adaptation, as in genetic mutation.

This changing landscape is raising many issues. It’s already hard enough to stay relevant, even without the foreseen widespread adoption of automation and artificial intelligence.

If the hardware can’t be changed, at least for now, let’s look then at the software, hence the Circuit Switching vs. Packet Switching thing.

We’re facing information overload. That’s pretty obvious.

Even back in 2008, Nicholas Carr was already complaining of “an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. (…) The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.”[2]

That figures. He’s a baby boomer. Even me, a so-called generation Xer, find myself in a similar struggle.

The point is that we’re still running Circuit Switching software.

It’s not the uneasiness of reading an entire book from a computer terminal, not anymore, being it a PC, laptop, pad, or even a pindle. Thankfully, the only flicker you get nowadays is a photo site.

It’s the Alt-Tab. That’s the tricky one. In the end of a book chapter, you might take a breath. That’s ok but, there you go – Alt-Tab – hum… looks interesting… eight minutes read… - It even shows the reading time! – go for it… what’s this? Hum… go for the hyperlink… twelve minutes read… hum... go… damn!

The possibility of finding yourself just skimming and not reading anymore, and ending up carrying on like that every time, is not at stake here. That’s really bad, but also essentially a matter of personal discipline. Don’t blame that on the software.

Well, in computer network parlance we have two fundamental approaches toward building a network core: circuit switching and packet switching. In circuit-switched networks the resources needed to provide for communication between the end systems are reserved for the duration of the communication session, whereas in packet-switched networks those resources are not reserved but used on demand; information flows in packets, in pieces, to be received, acknowledged and properly assembled at the receiving end.[3]

So, if you’re not a millennial and didn’t come with packet-switching software pre-installed, you’ll have to upgrade. Nobody uses circuit-switching anymore.

There’s no point on spending three or four days reading just one book anymore. When you’re done, you may realize you've missed a lot, as the world may have changed so much that your reading was turned useless anyhow, more so if you were reading a business book.

Just make sure you don’t send those packets to /dev/null though.

[1] Kharpal, Arjun (Feb. 13, 2017) Elon Musk: Humans must merge with machines or become irrelevant in AI age https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/13/elon-musk-humans-merge-machines-cyborg-artificial-intelligence-robots.html (accessed May 2, 2017)

[2] Carr, Nicholas (July 2008). "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". The Atlantic. 301 (6) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/ (accessed May 3, 2017)

[3] Kurose, James F., Ross, Keith W. (2003). Computer Networking. A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet. 2nd Edition. Addison Wesley.