The Age of the Nerds

We are now living in the Age of the Nerds. In case you haven't realized this, I'll give you a brief history of the "takeover". Although some of you know that I was/am a nerd (I am a retired electrical engineer), even I am a little scared by some of the implications. So how did this happen?

Nerds: The Beginnings

Nerds were and are driven by an obsessive passion (and a non-existent social life) to explore the implications of scientific and technological advances that haven't been fully realized, due to the limited number of people with access and passion for the arcane knowledge required. As these (nearly always) teen-aged males sublimated their sexual desires into technological passions, they developed a mindset that looked for interesting new applications, increasing the speed of success by freely sharing their ideas and creations with other nerds.

This mindset was to find traction in the Silicon Valley in the 70's when semiconductor companies were creating the integrated circuits that were capable of creating not just calculators but actual computers. This hardware capability spawned a surge in the interest to program these powerful calculators, and software "hackers" were born, creating compilers and operating systems, the foundations for making computers accessible to non-hackers. Bill Gates began his career by writing a Basic language compiler for the MITS Altair 8800, an early personal computer; it took up only 4KB of memory! At first, these machines were used only by other nerds and the outside world was mostly unaware of and unaffected by this advance.

Nerds Invade Hollywood (It's Just down the Coast!)

As their machines became more powerful, they began to allow advances in public arenas like the entertainment field, with movies about science fiction and other fantasy worlds that were made to seem real due to the support of computational power previously unknown. The first feature film to use computer animation was Westworld in 1973; Star Wars in 1977 advanced the technology with the use of 3D wire-frame graphics. These techniques allowed fantasies that previously could only be imagined in a reader's mind to be brought to the screen (TV or movie) and nerds were able to begin their assault on pop culture. Today, movies have been taken over by 3D and CGI and realistic animation and by themes from comic books and fantasy or science fiction novels. The inner world of the nerds has taken over the entertainment world.

Nerds Create Their Own Businesses

As the technology became more capable, nerds began to make large sums of money by creating new applications that were publicly useful and new businesses to sell them. Nerds became rich and powerful -- Bill Gates became one of the richest men in the world. Soon it became common knowledge that one way to a life of luxury was to be a nerd. Nerds have become rock stars, entrepreneurs of new businesses, and promoters of a new spirit of applied creativity. Steve Wozniak was even a recent contestant on "Dancing with the Stars". Nerds are no longer hidden in the shadows, they are mainstream!

Nerds Bring Cyberspace to our Homes

Although, the early history of digital communication networks goes back to the 60's, it wasn't until CERN developed the World Wide Web in 1991 that the foundation was truly in place for what is now known as the Internet. Initially created for and used by nerds, it eventually became accessible and usable by the average citizen. It is estimated that over 2 Billion people use the Internet today. It has become the storehouse for nearly all of man's collected knowledge and creative output.

Now, it is much easier to stay current in any niche of knowledge desired - everyone can have the arcane knowledge of a nerd without the effort and single-minded focus that used to be required. Nerd-dom can now be achieved part-time! The Internet has made obsessive behavior the norm for our modern society; the math and science necessary to support this is now mostly hidden from public view. There is no need to be a technical nerd anymore; you can be obsessive in any area you please! The geeks are still around, creating an ever more efficient access to an ever-increasing supply of information, but you don't have to be one of them to be captivated by the world they have created.

The irony is that the world now primarily communicates with digital media using the Internet that was created by nerds that can hardly communicate themselves! We now communicate like nerds - with many using a special language born from limited text messages on our cell phones (which also support the "old-fashioned" communication by voice). We can also send real-time videos of ourselves and our surroundings, to show people what we are doing without having to talk about it. There is at least as much excitement about the ability to instantly "share" with the world as there is about whether meaningful conversations and dialogues are actually taking place - this is the world of nerds!

Computers Takeover Wall Street

But the takeover of the nerds doesn't end there; far from it! The power of computers and the advances of technology have allowed the obsessive, single-minded, mathematically-driven world of the nerds to creep into other areas as well. Wall Street is now controlled by computer algorithms running on millions of computers, performing trades at lightning-fast speed with sometimes unpredictable results. On May 6, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 573 points IN FIVE MINUTES! This so-called "flash crash" has caused the SEC to take a serious look at what can be done to limit the impact of computer trading, which now represents 70% of all trades on Wall Street.

Traders have grown accustomed to the advantages of computer-controlled trading - fast, cheap, easy trades. But humans no longer understand the logic that these algorithms are using. Yes, they are each created by humans, but they are looking for unspecified patterns in massive amounts of data and acting on those patterns instantly causing interactions with other algorithms that are no longer predictable by anyone. We can limit their effect with various "governors", but they ARE in control!

Smart Machines are Here Now

The world of Terminator, where robots and machines control everything and where humans are no longer considered relevant, is still science fiction. The world of robots IS here, but we may not have noticed because they aren't clones of humans; they are clones of nerds! By that I mean they are not general purpose thinking machines with an inner consciousness, but single-purpose automatons that perform limited tasks very efficiently. We have semi-autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers. We are developing airplanes and cars that drive themselves. The ability to find patterns in large amounts of data has been a boon not only to Wall Street, but also to: medical imaging, the creation of music, credit card fraud detection, transportation logistics, and, of course, Internet search engines.

Nerds: The Next Generation

The latest generation of nerds is no longer "playing" in the world of physics and electronics; they are now getting into biology and genetic creations! People like Craig Ventner, of human genome fame, are leading us into a new exploration of what it means to be human and how much we can increase the power of our body and our mind through the use of advances in chemical and biological innovations.

Nerds live in a world of passion and creativity. Science fiction writers were earlier day nerds, exploring possible technological advances and implications the only way available to them - in text. Later, the power of computers opened up the means to "flesh out" these fictional worlds in computer-generated 2D and now 3D displays of realistic animation. But the future holds the possibility that we will begin to truly add "flesh" to our fantasy worlds with genetic creations that literally bring our creations into the real world.

We are truly living in the Age of the Nerds-not only the humans who created and maintained the ever-increasing use of technology in all areas our society, but their "clones" in the computer algorithms that are used more and more to replace and outperform humans in "menial" tasks. Like the Borg in Star Trek, our society has been assimilated by the Nerds and resistance is futile!

Staying Informed in The Age of the Nerds

If you want to know what is happening now, you need to read magazines like Wired, which, like nerds, is now mainstream. Originally published in 1993 as a geek journal, changes to the magazine in the last decade have made it an award-winning mainstream magazine. It won the Magazine of the Decade award in 2009 from AdWeek and won National Magazine awards for General Excellence in 2005, 2007, and 2009. It is currently my favorite magazine to keep up with not only technological trends, but also those in pop culture, as nerds continue to drive change into all areas of our lives.

REFERENCES

"Special Report: Artificial Intelligence", Wired magazine, Jan 2011

"Geek Power", Wired, May 2010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wired_(magazine)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_computer_animation_in_film_and_television

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet