Tim Berners-Lee shares his predictions for the future

Berners-Lee is credited with inventing world-changing technology in 1989 while working at CERN, the Swiss particle physics research center.

The London-born computer scientist submitted a proposal for an information management system that would help share information among colleagues.

Berners-Lee continued to work on this idea of ​​an information sharing system, and by 1991 the World Wide Web was up and running.

In 1993, Berners-Lee persuaded CERN to release its web protocols and source code into the public domain without patents or fees. Berners-Lee attributes the Web’s phenomenal success to this decision.

Berners-Lee remembers what it was like when the web started 35 years ago. “When it started, we couldn’t have predicted something like this, this kind of change,” he told CNBC.

But he saw early signs that the Web was poised for great growth. Traffic to his very first website, info.cern.ch, “increased by a factor of 10 every year, and every four months he doubled.”

“I lost track of the log because it broke,” Berners-Lee recalled. “It’s going to be tough from now on. We have to make sure it doesn’t collapse.”

Berners-Lee is aware of some of the downsides that the web has had, decades in the making. As an example, he says, social media feeds tailored by AI algorithms are meant to make people “feel angry or upset or hateful.”

On the other hand, the ease with which social media platforms can create content and launch new websites and blogs has led to the ‘disenfranchisement’ of people and businesses, where they lose ownership of their data. , he added.

But Berners-Lee remains optimistic about the future. Here are some of his top predictions for what the web will look like over the next 35 years.

Prediction 1: Everyone will have a personal AI assistant

One of Berners-Lee’s big predictions is that AI will change the way we interact with the web.

With the advent of generative AI tools like Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT, tech companies are increasingly turning to digital chatbots to help consumers get the information they need and even create documents and code. I’m betting on it.

There are already companies using AI-powered devices to reimagine what interactions with the web look like, such as Samsung’s Galaxy S24 smartphone and US startup Humane AI’s wearable Pin device.

Berners-Lee believes that someday there will be AI assistants who will work for us in the same way that doctors, lawyers, and bankers do.

“Some people worry about whether AI will be more powerful than us in 35 years,” Berners-Lee told CNBC over a Zoom video call last week.

“One of the things I foresee, and it’s something we may have to fight for, is that you’ll have an AI assistant that you can trust that will work for you, like a doctor. That’s true,” Berners-Lee said.

Robert Blumofe, global chief technology officer at Akamai, says the web will no longer be used by humans, and AI agents will take the reins instead of humans.

“You can imagine a world a few years from now, where the web is the domain of AI agents and humans can no longer effectively use the web,” Brumofe said in an interview with CNBC last week.

“It’s all done through an AI agent. There’s no direct access to your online bank account, online healthcare provider, or e-commerce site.”

In fact, Akamai was founded in response to a challenge posed by Berners-Lee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in early 1995: to create a new way to deliver Web content to end users more quickly.

Blumofe still believes in the ability to watch entertainment TV shows, movies, and video games online. But many of the everyday functions of our online lives, he believes, will be managed by AI in the future.

“Humanity can return to living in the physical world, where we meet and greet each other, as a physical experience rather than a virtual experience,” he said.

Prediction 2: We will take true ownership of our data across all platforms, including VR.

Another thing Berners-Lee predicts is a web where we all have complete control over our data.

So instead of transferring ownership of your data to Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or other tech giants, you can instead own your data through data stores, or “pods.”

“When you think of a data pod as a digital space, you think it’s one of those things that you’re very comfortable with,” Berners-Lee explains.

Pods are a technology Berners-Lee is working on with her startup Inrupt.

Inrupt is behind something called the Solid protocol, which “aims to fundamentally change the way web applications work today, delivering true data ownership and improved privacy.”

The company raised $30 million in 2022 from venture capital firms including Forte Ventures, Akamai, and Glasswing Ventures.

Berners-Lee’s vision of the future of the web is to use digital pods to access all your important applications, including email from your mobile phone as well as larger screens such as laptops, desktop computers, and televisions. Become.

Berners-Lee added that his idea is to have a set of “trusted apps” that can communicate with each other, share information, and perform important tasks faster.

For example, consider purchasing a flight ticket. Berners-Lee said the future experience on the web will be one where you can use your wallet to buy a flight from a flight aggregator, access your deposited data, and plan what you’re going to do there. I predict that it will. destination.

“Your ability to live your life is even more powerful because all the different parts of your data – to-do lists, calendar events, etc. – are brought together.”

Chintan Patel, chief technology officer at British software company Cisco, said he believes the web is ultimately moving into an open place where information can be shared more easily.

“We’re seeing the web become a little more fragmented with more siled platforms, and more information being collected, sold, and in many cases even misused,” Patel said. said.

However, he noted that OpenAI’s ChatGPT and several other popular generative AI tools leverage data from the open web.

“For all its shortcomings, the Web has brought far more benefits to society and made much more possible,” Patel said.

Berners-Lee predicts that his vision for the web will be taken a step further with virtual reality and mixed reality, where both the physical and digital worlds interact through powerful headsets.

“You can do something with a VR headset, and then you can take the VR headset off and do it on a giant screen,” he said. “And whenever you move around, you can pick up your phone and it’s a unified experience. You should be able to move between different devices very smoothly.”

Mixed reality is a new dimension of access that web experts expect to become more familiar with over time.

Chintan Patel, chief technology officer at British enterprise technology company Cisco, said in an interview with CNBC: “There’s going to be a huge shift in terms of serious digital connectivity.”

“By then, it’s going to be called some form of spatial computing or spatial environments. They’re not going to be what we’re looking for, they’re going to be immersive experiences that are offered to us. ”

Prediction 3: Big tech companies may break up

Another thing Berners-Lee said could happen in the future is that big technology companies will be forced to break up.

Last week, the European Union’s landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA) officially came into force, forcing tech giants to make changes to their platforms that allow competing products to flourish, in hopes of leading to healthier technology competition. It was a big step. .

If a tech company breaches its obligations under the DMA, the European Commission can take significant legal action. This includes fines of up to 10% of a company’s global annual revenue, and up to 20% for repeat offenses.

In extreme cases, the European Commission could require the company to be broken up, but given the legal hurdles Brussels could face, most antitrust lawyers say such an outcome is unlikely. I don’t think so.

Berners-Lee said he always prefers technology companies to “do the right thing themselves” before regulators step in. “That’s always been the ethos of the internet.”

He uses the example of the Data Transfer Initiative, a private initiative launched in 2018 that now has support from Google, Apple, Meta and others, to increase the portability of photos, videos, and other data across platforms. We are promoting it.

“Maybe companies were a little inspired by the possibility of regulation,” Berners-Lee said. “But this was independent.”

But, he added, “Things are changing very quickly. AI is changing very quickly. There are monopolies in AI. Monopolies have changed pretty quickly on the web.” Ta.

“Probably at some point in the future, agencies will have to work on breaking up large companies, but we don’t know which companies that will be,” Berners-Lee said.