A fully networked world, combined with powerful data mining, collaboration, and artificial intelligence technologies presents an interesting new paradigm. Bill Gates has taken a shot at elucidating the related issues. To sum up, we’re clearly in the midst of a transition from information (where search engines help us locate factoids across the Internet and can answer rudimentary questions) to knowledge (where a contact map can show us who in an enterprise is the “central” figure despite what the organization chart says). The next leap may be that some of those key decision-makers or knowledge contributors (who lend context and experience to the sea of data) are not people at all, but intelligent engines.
Now, legal minds and ethicists are struggling with the notion of intellectual property that is created by a machine and not a person. Some generation tools are getting so good that there is already application source which is hard to attribute to any particular human entity (person or corporation).
There are exciting times ahead.