All language subtitles for Through.the.Wormhole.S05E04.How.to.Collapse.a.Superpower.720p.HDTV.x264-DHD

The most powerful nations

fear a new form of warfare that
could bring them to their knees.

In this age where armies,
governments, and economies

all depend on an intricate
global infrastructure,

you don't need guns and bombs
to bring down a superpower.

All you need is imagination.

Shift time by a millionth
of a second and create chaos.

Use the human body to spread
a killer computer virus.

Turn the technology
we are addicted to against us.

Will human ingenuity triumph?

Or will our ingenuity
prove our undoing?

Space, time, life itself...

The secrets of the cosmos lie
through the wormhole.

♪ Through the Wormhole 05x04 ♪ How to Collapse a
Superpower Original Air Date on June 11,

You and I rely on
our modern civilization,

but there are plenty of people
who don't like it,

for a variety of reasons,

religion, politics,
or maybe fear about our future.

For now, let's call
these people "terrorists."

Terrorists don't fight by
conventional means.

They strike in ways
we don't expect.

Now, we have given them
a weapon

that could change
the global balance of power.

The stability of the U.S.,
Europe, China,

and any global power
depends on

high-speed
digital communication.

With a little imagination,
could a few terrorists sabotage

this massive network,
cripple a mighty nation,

perhaps even tear
down modern civilization?

Batter is Jackie Robinson.

One ball, one strike.
Two on, two out.

When I was growing up
in Mississippi,

I loved to listen
to the old Brooklyn Dodgers

baseball games, broadcast live
all the way from New York.

It amazed me to think
that my family was cheering

one of Jackie Robinson's
big hits at the same instant

as tens of thousands of fans
at Ebbets Field.

Way back, it's gone!

That's a home run
for Jackie Robinson.

Invisible radio signals that
connected millions of people

and synchronized us all.

They're coming out of the
dugout now to shake hands...

Today, we are more connected
than ever before.

And all the machines
that connect us,

the machines that
keep the modern world running,

rely on
precisely synchronized time.

But could time be turned
against us?

The National Institute of
Standards and Technology

in Boulder, Colorado,
is the home base

of physicist Judah Levine.

Whenever you use a computer
or your cell phone,

you're tapping into
Judah's greatest creation,

the Internet time service.

The Internet time service sends
out signals that let computers

synchronize their clocks to
within a millionth of a second,

and the number of devices
that need precise time

is skyrocketing.

The growth has been
5% per month,

compounded for 15 years.

And so, we started out with
50,000 requests a day, and now,

we have about six billion
requests a day.

No single clock
keeps time for the world.

N.I.S.T. has a dozen,

each measuring time
in different ways.

The accuracy of Judah's clocks
is vital for controlling

electric power grids,

synchronizing telecommunications
networks,

timing financial transactions,
and perhaps most importantly,

making the global positioning
system work.

Imagine if terrorists
threw those clocks off

by just a tiny bit.

What would happen?

The G.P.S. navigation
system depends on the fact that

all the satellites are
synchronized to the same time,

which is called
G.P.S. system time.

The system fundamentally
requires that,

and it won't work
without it.

It just doesn't work at all.
It's not that it degrades.

It just doesn't work.

Around the world,

more than 5,000 planes are
in the air at any given time.

To keep them from colliding,
controllers must track time,

speed and distance
with great precision.

A few seconds' disruption in
th network could mean disaster

in the tightly packed airspace
around a major airport.

Now imagine that effect
simultaneously hitting

the entire infrastructure
that keeps a superpower running.

Power plants, hospitals,
food delivery, oil production,

all depend on
time-critical functions.

Throw them out of sync,

and there could be
a catastrophic chain reaction.

Small effects, if they're not
damped out quickly,

can grow to become
much bigger problems.

Judah's challenge is to
keep that chain reaction

from happening.

His biggest threat
comes from hackers.

The last year or two has seen
a dramatic increase in hackers.

It used to be that you really
had to understand how to write

some of these attacks, but now,
one person writes the attack

and distributes it
among 50 people

or 500 people or 5,000 people
who don't necessarily understand

even how the attack works,

and all they have to do
is copy and run it.

So it's a problem
that's only gonna get worse.

Judah's Internet time
service protects itself

by spreading its clocks around.

This goes back to the original
purpose of the Internet --

distributing control
so losing a few sites

won't take down
the entire network.

The N.I.S.T.
Internet time service

is more difficult to jam,
because it's so distributed.

There are 45 servers.

They're all
at different locations.

They don't have
the same address.

They don't have the same
physical -- physical networks.

So jamming all of them
simultaneously would be --

I wouldn't want to say
it was impossible,

'cause probably
nothing's impossible,

but it would be quite a job.

But the illusion of security

may be the greatest threat
we face --

the false belief we are safe
when we are not.

People tend to believe what
they see and what they are told,

especially when it comes
from a trusted figure.

I've come here to Cairo to seek
a new beginning

between the United States
and Muslims around the world.

America is not, and never will
be, at war with Islam.

But what if you
couldn't trust anyone anymore?

With today's technology,

it is easy to turn harmless
words into something

completely incendiary.

I seek war with Islam.

If someone sees this
fake and believes it is real,

it could start a religious war.

Islam has demonstrated
hatred rather than peace.

I seek war with Islam.

Protecting our identities

and those of our leaders
against a terrorist assault

is a top priority
for governments,

militaries and businesses.

Here at Switzerland's
Idiap Research Institute,

one man is shoring up
the virtual battlements

that keep out
the cyberterrorists.

Sébastien Marcel is an expert
in biometrics --

the science of using the unique
signatures of the body

to verify a person's identity.

Biometric security is
a vast leap beyond passwords

and I.D. cards,

which is why a shadowy army
is trying to defeat it.

The challenge is to make
the task so difficult

for possible attackers that they
will just not try to do it.

There are many
different kinds of biometrics --

fingerprints, the iris,
the way you walk.

The more individual
the biometric,

the harder it is to hack.

Sébastien plays the dual roles
of cyberterrorist

looking for vulnerabilities
and defender of the system.

We always come first
with a form of attack,

then find a countermeasure
for that.

Then give us an idea
on another way

to make a more clever attack.

And then we do it
again and again.

Eventually, we will reach
a point where it's not

going to be possible to make
any new form of attacks

that can bypass the system.

If a terrorist tricks
security systems into believing

he is the president
or one of his trusted aides,

he could start a war.

It's not as far-fetched
as it sounds.

Even something unique,
like your face,

isn't enough to safeguard
your identity.

So here I have the laptop
which is protected

by biometric face recognition.

We have an account created by
a colleague

and I'm trying to be
recognized as my colleague,

and, uh, my -- well, basically,
doesn't work

because I'm not her.

I've taken a picture
of my colleague here

and I'm just going to show it
in front of the camera

and let's see what happens.

So here, you can see that I've
been able to log in very easily,

actually.
It was instantaneous.

Now, Sébastien switches
back to guard duty.

He activates a countermeasure
that strengthens the laptop's

biometric shield.

The software looks not just
for a specific face,

but also blinking eyes.

So here,
you see that, actually, well,

it's no longer possible
to enter the system.

Even this added layer
of biometric defense cannot,

however,
deter an imaginative attacker.

By scanning a photograph
with 3D imaging software,

Sébastien has created a mask
of his colleague.

So now, I'm going to put
the mask of my colleague on

and try to see
if I'm recognized.

Yeah.

So, I've been recognized
and because I was blinking,

and I was able to bypass
the countermeasure.

It is harder to copy
someone's body than a password,

but nothing is foolproof.

The more biometric data
available -- photographs,

medical records, fingerprints,
the more vulnerable we become.

You can take any public
biometric data you can find on

from the Internet.

You can find some pictures
of people, even presidents,

world leaders and to build
these kind of attacks.

Playing the role
of attentive defender

and malicious invader
has taught Sébastien

that he is in a life or death
race with no finish line.

The infrastructure that supports
modern civilization may always

be one clever attack away
from disaster.

My feeling is that

if this problem is not taken
seriously into account,

then we might see an attack
that was successful.

So this is the major risk.

This is the new arms
race for the 21st century,

staying a step ahead of those

who want to infiltrate
our networks.

But there is one attack we might
never see coming --

when people themselves
are hacked

and turned against
their own country

without their even knowing.

If someone wanted to bring
a superpower like America

to its knees,
where would they strike?

We expect attacks on our
financial and military networks,

but human bodies may also be
vulnerable to hacking.

Could our newest high-tech
medical devices

be giving terrorists
an opportunity?

Could they create a sleeper army
of unwitting assassins?

Dr. Mark Gasson is pioneering
the latest generation

of medical implants,
such as pacemakers,

Insulin pumps for diabetics
and deep brain stimulators.

So this is an implant
for a medical device.

It's much like a pacemaker,
right?

We use it for
deep brain stimulation.

So it would be implanted
in the chest cavity

and then we would run cables
from this up under the skin

and into electrodes
that we put deep into the brain.

This type of device,
once it's implanted in the body,

you don't want to have to remove
it to change any settings,

so it has wireless capability.

Implants are modern miracles.

But the downside
is that these devices

use radio frequency
transmissions

to transfer data.

And the devices they talk to,
called readers, can be hacked.

If you know how to construct
a reader that communicates

in the right way, then you can
essentially pretend to be

a legitimate reader
talking to it.

This type of device and many
other medical devices don't have

any security to stop you
from doing that.

This lack of security
could have deadly ramifications.

If a networked device
is in your body,

it could be remotely
triggered to kill you.

Imagine a foreign power wants
to assassinate a leader

with an implant.

A concealed reader could be
altered to shut down a pacemaker

or pump a fatal dose of Insulin
into a diabetic's bloodstream.

A device like this will have
a certain range

that it operates in.

So if we put a device attached
to a podium, for example,

then we could have it targeted
specifically at the person

standing at the podium.

A reader could be designed

to transfer a digital virus
to an implant, say,

in the prosthetic leg
of a general.

The virus' real target may be
the White House security system.

The general could leave
the center of government

open to a terrorist attack.

It sounds like the stuff
of fiction,

but Mark has already
proven it can be done.

In 2010, Mark hacked himself.

He implanted a radio frequency
transponder, like this one,

in his hand.

The microchip contained personal
information and passcodes

that opened the security doors
at his lab.

After the chip was
up and running,

he infected it
with a computer virus.

So by infecting my
device with a virus meant that

when I accessed the building,

the building reads the virus
out of my device

and then transmits that
to the system that controls,

uh, the access to the building.

So once that had occurred,

the virus actually infected
that main system,

which meant that anyone else
that was getting access

to the building had that virus
copied to their --

typically,
they use smart cards.

So the virus was able
to propagate in that way.

Mark watched the virus
jump from his wrist

to the system,

where it rapidly caused
a security nightmare.

The virus
that I infected my device with

was able to corrupt
the whole system.

So it actually stopped the
system from functioning at all.

All the system could then do is
make copies of the virus

onto the smart cards

and other devices that people
would be using.

And that means they then
couldn't get into the building,

and if they went to
another building

that used the same system,

they would just continue
to spread the virus on.

Mark proved that implants

could not only be infected
with toxic code --

they can be used
to transfer toxic code.

This has ominous implications.

By building information highways
across the world,

we may have given our enemies
an express Lane

into our most vital systems
via the devices in our bodies.

How do we defend ourselves

from a world filled
with cyberterrorists?

This man may know.

He's using computers to track
down and fight deadly viruses,

both digital and biological.

Influenza, smallpox, H.I.V.

Global pandemics happen
every decade or so.

Sometimes,
they kill tens of millions.

Now there are new threats.

Digital viruses
that spread like lightning

and could tear our critical
global networks apart.

What lies ahead could be even
more frightening --

a pandemic designed to combined
the worst of both viral worlds,

electronic and biological.

Zero day.

That's the day a destructive
new virus enters the world.

The lack of awareness
on zero day

means complete vulnerability,

whether the virus
is biological or digital.

Is there a way
to stop these threats

before they spread?

Alex Vespignani believes
there is.

Alex is a professor of Physics,
Computer Science,

and Health Sciences
at Northeastern University.

He's an expert on contagion,
natural and electronic.

Actually, I did start
with digital viruses,

and because of the analogies,
especially in the techniques

that you can use
mathematically

to describe the spreading of
those viruses,

we started to get interested
in biological viruses.

Alex's lab tracks
viral outbreaks of all kinds

and looks for ways
to minimize their impact.

In 2009, a virulent flu bug
named HNn1

flared up in Mexico City.

To predict how and when
the flu would spread,

Alex and his team
designed a powerful program

called G.L.E.A.M. --

the global epidemic
and mobility model.

G.L.E.A.M. models all
7 billion people on earth

and predicts how
they will interact.

So, in the computer, we take one
person that is in Mexico City,

and board on one flight that is
simulated in the computer,

and if that person is a carrier,
will transmit the disease

to another geographical area
in the world.

We repeat those simulation many,
many, many times,

and this will tell us what is
the most likely pattern that

the epidemic will follow
in the future.

G.L.E.A.M. anticipated
when the H1N1 flu pandemic

would reach its peak
in different regions

around the world.

Alex also uses G.L.E.A.M.
to track outbreaks

of computer viruses.

When he first entered
this field,

digital and biological viruses

followed similar paths
of infection.

A virus would be physically
carried from person to person,

or machine to machine.

Outbreaks would take weeks
or months to unfold.

On the left,
we have a virus that spreads

because of proximity,
and in this case,

what you see is that the virus
spreads every time that people

get in physical proximity,
so in touch with each other.

This takes some time.

Biological viruses
still spread this way,

but digital viruses
now have something influenza

and ebola don't --

the ability to
travel around the world

at the speed of light.

A single computer virus
can infect

tens of millions of computers
before anyone realizes

what is happening.

So on the right side,

we have a virus
that spreads wirelessly,

basically, on the Internet.

This doesn't require
the physical proximity.

You don't need the carriers
to be in a place

to transmit the disease.

The disease is teleported,
in a sense.

And you will see that,
in just a few minutes,

it reaches
the entire population.

So it blows out like
a big explosion all at once.

How do you fight
pathogens that can spread around

the world in seconds?

Alex's colleagues are trying to
create a global digital defense,

similar to
the human immune system,

bits of code that act
like biological t-cells,

swarming viruses to isolate
and eliminate them.

Unfortunately, clever hackers
are getting better

at creating
undetectable viruses.

In the digital
world, viruses or malwares

are constantly changing,
so that it's not easy

to write an algorithm
that detect them

and clean the machine
right away.

Trojan horse malware is
specifically designed

to blend into the background

until it reaches
its intended target.

Once it invades
a critical system, say,

the control software of cooling
rods at a nuclear power plant,

it can lay dormant
for weeks or months.

Then, one day, it activates.

This is day zero,
and the new malware is going to

exploit the vulnerabilities
of those servers.

It can hide here or proliferate
over the Internet,

and finally unleash
all the damage

it has been programmed for.

But there is
an even more disturbing threat.

What if terrorists apply
the principles of malware

to biological pathogens?

Imagine biological viruses
designed

to masquerade as harmless germs.

They'd spread throughout
the population, then detonate.

It would be
a nightmare scenario.

But the dangers of engineering
pathogens are so great,

and the results so hard
to control,

that even terrorists
may not risk it.

Even the simplest
biological viruses

are much, much, more complicated
than computer viruses.

As soon as you start
manipulating a virus,

it's very difficult to guess
what is going to happen.

It's a very dangerous game,
so trying to alter nature

is something, uh, that can
easily lead to doomsday.

The future may be filled
with frightening outbreaks

unless we find a way
to lock down

our critical
information networks.

In a world where privacy
is fading away

and everything is
open to attack,

can there ever again
be such a thing as... a secret?

During the Cold War,

the Soviet Union
and the United States

were locked
in a nuclear arms race.

The philosophy behind it
was M.A.D.,

which stood for
"mutually assured destruction."

Today's arms race
could be called

"mutually assured decryption."

Computer networks develop

ever-more secure
encryption schemes,

and ever-more powerful
attack networks

figure out
how to crack them.

But there may be a way to stop
this madness by creating a code

that can never be cracked.

Roarke Horstmeyer
is a cryptographic researcher

at Caltech.

Though he works with computers,
he follows an ancient quest.

Roarke seeks the perfect code,

a foolproof way
to keep secrets secret.

So this is an example
of a secret code.

And right now,
it doesn't look like anything.

Most of us see random letters,

but an expert sees a message
encrypted with a Caesar cipher,

named after Julius Caesar,

who used it
for clandestine communications.

The way you crack
a Caesar cipher is you just look

for the most frequent letter.

So here, "I" is the most
common letter.

And you know that "E"
is the most common letter

that appears in
the English language.

So I can match "I" to "E,"
and then I can count

and see that that's
four letters changed.

Repeating the same for "X,"
I can count back four letters

and see it might be
representing "t."

X-L-I is being converted
to "the."

Letter transposition
codes were high-tech

in the Roman empire,

but in this age
of computational power,

they are trivially easy
to break.

The modern gold standard
of cryptography

is the one-time pad.

This technique adds or subtracts
a different value

for every single letter
of a message.

The way it works is,

for each letter of what
you're trying to keep secret,

you choose a different
and random number

to permute that letter.

Essentially, each
letter has a different code,

so guessing one letter
won't help you figure out

any of the other letters
in the message.

Only someone with access
to the one-time pad,

the code book itself, would be
able to make any sense of this.

But even this technically
perfect code can be cracked.

The one-time pads used by
governments and businesses

to protect their secrets rely on
specialized machines

that generate random numbers.

But Edward Snowden revealed
the N.S.A.

has compromised those machines.

The random numbers they generate
are not actually random,

so the N.S.A. can crack even
these theoretically

uncrackable codes.

As more information about what
the N.S.A. has been

and is capable of has come out,

it's been a big motivating
factor, I think,

to a lot of cryptography
over the last year.

Roarke and his
colleagues went searching for

an ideal generator
of randomness,

and they found it in light.

We realized, or saw,
actually, visually,

how random light can behave
when it interacts

with disordered particles,
like in dried spray paint.

So it's easy to create a lot of
randomness by shining light

on scattering particles.

Using lasers,

Roarke directs a beam of light
through a sheet of

polymer-dispersed
liquid crystal.

It's a variation on
the L.C.D. display

you might find
in a laptop screen.

We create our one-time pad

by shining laser light through
our scattering material.

The laser illuminates
the scattering material,

the light scatters
through it randomly,

and then emerges on the other
side as an interference pattern.

Once the unique pattern
is created,

you can turn it into a code.

Every letter or numerical
character is represented

by light or dark spots
in the polymer.

Each square micrometer
of random pattern in the polymer

provides enough
light and dark spots

to embed millions of code words.

Say two spies create
a shared code pattern.

Then they separate,
never to meet again.

The first spy encodes a message
with his piece of polymer

and sends it to the other spy.

Spy number two receives
the encoded communication

and takes out his piece
of polymer to view it.

When he subtracts the shared
pattern from the code,

he can read the secret message.

But unlike a conventional
one-time pad,

this code can't be duplicated.

The three-dimensional layers
of crystals embedded

in the polymer sheet cannot be
captured by a photograph.

The randomness doesn't just
exist on the surface

of the material.

It exists inside the material.

And any attempt to get inside
the volume will destroy it,

or change the way it behaves,
essentially.

An unbreakable code
could shore up

all of a superpower's
critical networks

against infiltration
by enemies of the state.

But humans, not technology,

have always been the weakest
link in security systems.

What if the assault
on our society

is more insidious
than terrorism?

So subtle, in fact, that we may
not realize it's even happening?

A superpower would reel
from successful attacks

on its bridges, its electrical
grid or its water supply.

But what if an attack
is already underway?

An attack not on physical
objects but on society itself?

An attack from within?

Is our addiction to the Internet

sowing the seeds
of our destruction?

The campus of Swansea University

sits on the picturesque
coastline of southwestern Wales.

But like college students
everywhere,

these young men and women
are more absorbed

in the digital world than
the natural world.

Most of them were born
in the 1990s.

They don't know life
without the Internet.

And for some of them,
being offline would be

physically
and emotionally traumatic,

because the Internet rewrites
the brain

as much as ecstasy or heroin.

Professor Phil Reed has worked
for years finding treatments

for autism and drug addiction.

But a few years ago,
he noticed a disorder

that is just as widespread --

the effect technology is having
on our minds and bodies.

Now, I think the Internet
is really something new here,

because what we're seeing
is a piece of technology

that is almost designed
to isolate individuals.

If you were to change the way
society worked,

this would be
a really good way to do it.

Phil wanted to find out
if the Internet

is addictive enough to
cause withdrawal symptoms.

First, he tested the mental
state of participants before

and after they spent time
online.

He found heavy users experienced
profound negative mood swings

when they're cut off
from the net.

But the impact of withdrawal
goes deeper

than spoiling people's moods.

Shutting down the Internet
connection triggers the body's

fight-or-flight response.

So we're looking at their heart
rate, their blood pressure,

the galvanic skin response.

It's like they're facing
a threat all of the time.

Their heart rate's gone up.
Their blood pressure's gone up.

Their skin conductance is high.

It's suggesting that long-term
exposure to the 'net

might actually be placing
a strain on people's physiology.

They might feel relaxed,
but in fact, they're hyped up.

But the most disturbing
effect of Internet addiction

is what it does
inside the brain.

Phil and other researchers have
been scanning the brains

of heavy Internet users and
finding disturbing alterations

in their mental architecture.

In terms of where we're seeing
changes in brain matter,

we're seeing them up
at the front, here, um,

especially pre-frontal cortex,
but also cortical changes,

but also down the side, in terms
of the motor areas of the brain.

So we've got changes all over.

People who surf the web
10 hours a day

can experience a 10% shrinkage
in key brain regions,

according to one study.

That's the kind of damage
you might get

from a serious case
of meningitis.

It would permanently change
how you think and behave.

Any new technology can be
regarded like an alien parasite,

and that goes for anything
that we use.

We think it's serving us,
and initially, it does.

But eventually,
our society and ourselves,

we become dependent on it.

The Internet is now an
essential tool in every powerful

nation on earth.

But its many benefits come
with side effects

that could shatter society.

Will it ultimately
prove a force for good?

Or will it be the tool
of our self-destruction?

We don't know.

Essentially,
we are running a beta test

on the population of earth.

If you were designing
an aircraft,

you'd have backup systems.

We never do that with society.
We never have a backup system.

It's all or nothing,

and the way we seem
to have gone is digital.

An addiction to technology

may be the greatest weakness
of a superpower.

By trying to improve our lives
with machines,

we may lose ourselves
in software.

And there's one more thing
to consider.

What if the Internet wakes up?

Could an all-powerful
digital consciousness

become the final superpower?

Our society is under threat
on many fronts.

Terrorists could attack
our time service,

they could disrupt
the power grid

or the water supply network
or our satellite links.

But we should be careful not
to focus too closely

on these individual threats.

We may be staring at the trees
and missing the forest.

The real threat could be
the Internet itself.

Christof Koch is one of
the foremost neurobiologists

in the world.

He is chief scientist
at Paul Allen Institute

for brain research in Seattle.

For Christof, the mind is purely
a product of the web

of neurons in the brain.

So if the Internet were a brain,

how would its complexity
stack up against a human brain?

The Internet is, by far,

the most complex artifact
ever built by mankind.

It has on the order of probably
10,000 more transistors

than there are synapses
in your typical brain.

It certainly raises
the possibility,

given the enormous
complexity of the Internet,

that now,
or sometime in the future,

it may feel like something to be
the Internet,

that the Internet itself
has some degree of sentience.

Some say the Internet
may already be sentient

or self-aware, but its level of
consciousness may be similar

to that of a newborn.

Let's say the Internet
has some sort of dim awareness.

We have to ask how intelligent
is that awareness.

You know,
if you're a little baby,

you can be somewhat dimly
aware of your mom,

and that you're hungry, and that
you're looking for milk,

but you're not really
very intelligent

and you're not able to do a lot.

But presumably,

the Internet will learn
and evolve.

It will grow up.

If it does, how will we know
when it has become more than

just a glorified calculator?

One way to gauge consciousness
is to apply the turing test.

This imagines asking a man and
a machine a series of questions

without knowing who or what is
giving the answers.

If you can't figure out
which one is the machine,

if the machine has fooled you
into thinking it is human,

then for all practical purposes,
it might as well be intelligent.

Where do I look? At you?
At me.

Christof proposes
a new, improved Turing test

that measures not just
intelligence,

but consciousness.

The test uses visual imagery.

The computer must decide whether
a series of photographs

are right or wrong.

Any humans looking at these
photographs would know

they are not real,

but modern day computers
are still easily fooled.

A computer, unless you provide
it with a very, very large list,

an almost infinite large list
of all the exceptions,

could not deal with that.

And that's the basic nature
of this turing test

for visual consciousness.

Christof wants to
apply this test

to the entire Internet.

If the vast global network
of computers passes the test,

by his definition,
it is awake and aware.

But what if the Internet
is conscious?

What would it want?
How will it behave?

Will it be friend or foe,
servant or master?

To the extent that the Internet
developed independent behaviors

would be scary,
could be very scary.

Of course, it could have all
sorts of security implication.

To that extent, that would
certainly be a signal that

there's something independent,
autonomous there.

If the Internet begins
to do unpredictable things,

we will know we are dealing
with a new form of life.

It may even follow an important
precedent

in the biological history
of planet earth --

the absorption of smaller,
simpler life forms

into the bodies of larger,
more complex ones.

The future of humanity may be
similar to that of mitochondria,

the power generators inside most
biological cells.

Mitochondria were once
independent organisms,

but over evolutionary history,

they were taken over
by larger cells.

The once-independent
mitochondria

became a mere power source
for their Masters.

We, and the civilizations we now
think of as superpowers,

may be absorbed by
our own creation.

But what would it wa front,
other than occasional repairs?

Perhaps it would want
our energy.

Or perhaps it will desire
the one thing it doesn't have --

a soul.

The soul is really spooky.

If you can't measure it,
why do you need it?

What function does it do
that you can't do

with physical stuff anymore?

So today, with the existence
of computers,

there isn't any need
for soul stuff,

because it can all be done
using computations,

using algorithms in software.

A conscious,
superpowerful Internet

may not need a soul to function,

but experiencing the joys
and sorrows of humanity

would give it another way
to understand the world.

So our defining difference
from technology

may ultimately keep
the human race

from becoming its victim.

Throughout history,

every technological advance has
led to new forms of warfare.

The Bronze Age gave us
the ax and the sword.

Iron gave us the cannon
and the gun.

The Information Age has birthed
its own weapons.

But information is not
a physical resource

that can be mined
and controlled,

like iron and bronze.

It's a resource of the mind.

In this new age,
the fate of a nation,

even the mightiest superpower
rests on one thing --

the power of human imagination.