The Hybrid World

“born from the ashes of a world at war…..

warfare is evolving…..

everything we touch is a weapon….”

4th PSYOP Group – Ghosts in the Machine (May 2022)

There has been much discussion about the impact of new technologies such as VR and how they will change our society.?The reality is that it has already changed, most of us just don’t fully appreciate it.?We are already living in a hybrid world where the “real” world and the “cyber” world are inextricably linked and impact each other.?For those old enough to remember the time before the Internet, think about how differently you retained and searched for information before Google, how many “friends” you had that you and never actually met in person, how many times you bought an item from a store without a physical presence, or better yet, how many items you bought that weren’t actually physical items, versus virtual goods such as NFTs.?No, we don’t all walk around with VR headsets on, at least yet, we use a screen and a keyboard on our phones, which are really portable computers with computing power that is millions of times larger than the guidance computer for Apollo 11.?The only real difference is the interface we use (VR headset versus device screen) but that is an interface issue only.

And by that I mean this—whether we all run out tomorrow and buy a mansion in the Metaverse or not, we already live in a hybrid world with “real” and virtual hopelessly enmeshed—how much time we spend in each, and what mechanism we use to interact our hybrid world, matters exactly not at all.

While you may wonder why I followed a series of articles about corporate governance with this one, and what this has to do with companies and how they govern themselves.?The answer is everything.?The reason we have entered this hybrid world is that our predominant line of communication is, for the first time, virtual, and many things in the “physical” world now depend on the virtual world.?One of many such examples is a connected medical device—is that a physical device or a “virtual” device??The answer is a hybrid device.?Given the dependence upon the “Internet” by businesses now, most business processes are at minimum hybrid, if not fully virtual.

What do I mean by a line of communication??To understand that, you have to put into context the history of how society moves things over great expanses.?Society has always looked for ways to connect itself, which required the creation of technology to do it, and understanding the core components to that process is important, because there are certain consistencies in these methods of connecting—namely there is a medium that is used to connect—a “road,” a “platform” that travels along the road, an “engine” that propels that platform, and “propellant” or fuel to move the platform.?Over time, our ability to connect in a more efficient way has only increased, and not surprisingly the state, in many cases the military, created this technology.

If one looks at the history in context, roads were used for centuries, with various carts serving as the platform, pack animals provided the engine, and food for the animals fueled the engines.?Society eventually began using the ocean when ships were created that could travel long distances, and sails were the engine (before the creation of other engines for ships), and wind was the propellant. Eventually the skies became the “road,” when the plane became a way to connect quickly after the advent of the jet engine, which ran on oil.

Now we connect in cyberspace via a web of networks that are linked via our current road, the telecommunications backbone, with myriad platforms, and the engines being computing power, including AI/ML, which is propelled by information.?And as with many of these prior roads, this one was funded by the military—in this case what is now known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.?There are no natural or man-made borders, in most cases, with our current road, and the size of the engine keeps growing.?And, as always, as the engine grows, so too does the need for the propellant—in this case data.

A point is worth noting on the fuel/propellant point.?While I recognize that energy is needed to make the computers turn on, they are equally dependent on data to propel the computing process.?And to be clear, I do not just mean personal data.?Data of all types fuels, or propels, computing power in our current line of communication.

One can look at all of the examples above of how the creation of technology enhanced the connectivity of our world, and a key point becomes clear—these lines of communication can be used to do four things that are generally helpful for societies, but they also can be used to do four things that are detrimental to society.?

• Diplomacy v. War
• Information Sharing v. Propaganda
• Commerce v. Crime/Piracy
• Social Connection v. Espionage

Our core challenges in “privacy” and cyber result from our inability to see two things.?First, from a “privacy” perspective, much of our society depends upon a DARPA-created line of communication that is propelled by, and inherently dependent upon, an ever-increasing amount of data.?Second, from a cyber and national security perspective, our current line of communication is a borderless global road that permits these four sets of activities to occur, with few checkpoints along the way to regulate conduct.

You cannot solve complex problems without first identifying what the problems actually are.?It is past time to do that with “privacy” and cyber.?Future articles will link these issues more directly to how companies should rethink these issues, as well as how we all should rethink “privacy” and cyber to help improve our Hybrid World.?Until we do that, we will continue to provide the same answers to the same questions, and get the same results.