“I know that an epic struggle is at hand. The internet of things is at hand. And these electronic entities are going to grab all the physical stuff they can. And why not? They are the leading industries of the age, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, maybe Xiaomi, maybe Huawei, I mean, these are the major industries that we have. They are like the trains, like the railroads used to be. But the fact that they are consolidating now, and that they tend to mimic each other so much is a sign of consolidation in the computer industry. It means that some day it will be old fashioned. And I can sort of see over the side of that. When I talk about the 22nd century, I’m talking about a post-digital century. One when nobody is excited by networks, nobody cares about cyberspace, computers are boring, social media is something your grandfather did. Right? And, you know, it gets you past that kind of ‘singularity’ rhetoric, ‘if we just push it further everything is going to explode.’ No, it isn’t. It will explode, but not in the way you expect.”

Bruce Sterling, June 12th, at Porto.

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