Conclusion

New technologies can alter a society's topography--culturally, politically, even physically. The effects are not necessarily obvious at the outset, nor are they necessarily intended by the technology's creators or users. A century ago, the telephone eliminated many of the messengers who had previously shuttled information among downtown businesses. Elevators became less crowded as a result, which made taller buildings feasible. As AT&T's chief engineer noted in 1908, Alexander Graham Bell was the father of the skyscraper.

For today's new information technologies, the unintended consequences may be less benign than the skyscraper. Speakers at our conference touched on many possible perils. Here are a few others:

Democracy itself is essentially a model for collective decisionmaking. Electronic democracy will speed the process, and it may enhance citizen participation, but at what cost to effective governance? The flip side of universal empowerment and real-time decisionmaking, one might argue, is mob rule.
If reliable software ultimately allows users to locate the data they need by themselves, what happens to society's traditional packagers of information, including journalists, librarians, and educators? And what may be the consequences of the diminution of shared knowledge, especially if, as political scientist Benjamin Barber has said, "who we are in common is what we see in common?"
Only a small portion of art, literature, and history will ever be digitized and put online. Will the other material be forgotten? What of digitized material that can be accessed only through software or hardware that is no longer available--the eight-track tapes of tomorrow's electronic library? As MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum has written, the networked computer may become "an instrument for the destruction of history."
Although the Internet reduces transaction costs for all sorts of communications, the lowered costs may prove especially consequential for what many people deem antisocial messages. Certainly the technology has not invented hate speech, sadistic pornography, sexual and other forms of verbal harassment, defamation, forgery, or threats of violence. But, by facilitating instant, faceless, and potentially anonymous communications, it may be bolstering them. How will these trends play out on the NII?
Might the new technologies alter Americans' values? Religion historian Martin E. Marty has suggested that media on demand are "designed to put you in a solipsistic, narcissistic universe where you are God."

Such dystopian possibilities may prove as fanciful and groundless as the utopian visions that dominate the current debate. No doubt the NII's ultimate reality will fall somewhere between the two poles, a blend of benefits and costs. Still, the potential downside deserves the clear-eyed consideration of policymakers, corporate leaders, and citizens.