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and other precision-guided missiles on the illusory threat? Could it result in
command and control decisions that put nuclear forces in a ready-to-launch
status once other assets are exhausted? The world would be poised on the brink
of a holocaust for the sake of false images on a computer display. There are no
guarantees that all cultures/nations will be capable of including some type of
“fail-safe” rules in their software to guard against such an accidental launch.
When a programmer writes code, it is written to fulfill a task. As one
specialist has noted, it “is a task as a human sees it: full of unexpressed
knowledge, implicit associations, allusions to allusions. Its coherence comes
from knowledge structures deep in the body, from experience, memory.” 369
The issue of human knowledge mechanisms, as they relate to culture, language
and the means of expression, is quite complex. It is reasonable to suggest,
however, that if (IF) different cultures think differently in terms of logic and
perception, then there is no reason why this practice might not affect the way
they program. 370 However, perhaps more pertinent at this moment, any
difference in programming will be swamped by basic differences (how cultures
develop and interpret computer displays, what they design the system to
provide, etc.). The suggestion offered here is that cultures will specify tasks
differently to solve problems (for example, the manner in which heads up
displays are developed for the helmets of Russian versus American fighter
pilots).
Two Russian analysts who studied the implications of the digitized age
added other characteristics of the digital context, noting that:
• Collection is becoming more closely linked with the analysis and
processing of data—that is the entire effort is much more integrated
than before.
• Human involvement is decreasing, especially in the collection and
processing phases.
• Just as virtual reality is blurring the geo-political boundaries of
information space, so it blurs the enemy image—is it a state
(nation, country) or transnational (drug cartel, terrorist) threat?
• Distance is not as important as time (implementation and decisionmaking
elements).
• Software may become hostile to mankind if it replicates and gives
birth to systems of growing complexity, or self-destructs. 371
369 Ellen Ullman, Wired, April 1999, p. 128.
370 Discussion with Ms. Ullman via email, 6 April 1999.
371 Yuriy Baturin and Sergey Modestov, “Intelligence in Virtual Reality,” Vooruzheniy
Politica Konversiya [Equipment, Politics, Conversion], No. 1-2, 1998, pp. 53-56.
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