Photo Gallery Ceding Control to Computers
Intel's first mass-produced microprocessor, the 4004 from 1971: As computers have gotten faster and stronger, they have also taken over many aspects of our lives. Many industry experts and scholars worry that people are being increasingly marginalized by computers.
This week saw the opening of CeBit, the digital industry's most important trade fair, held each year in the northern German city of Hanover. The overarching motto of this year's convention is "Trust" -- trust in the safety of technology, in progress and in the pace at which progress unfolds. But for some, trust in technology is being replaced by fear.
Traders on the floor of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange: Within milliseconds, the super-fast computers of so-called high-frequency traders buy and sell stocks around the world when they detect price fluctuations of only fractions of a cent. At the same time, the work of these computers increases the risk of an unwanted crash because buying and selling is no longer controlled by human reason alone, but also by the programmed logic of machines.
President Barack Obama presents the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to (from left to right) Federico Faggin, Marcian E. Hoff Jr. and Stanley Mazor from Intel in 2010. About 40 years ago, Faggin was one of the first employees at Intel when he and his team developed the world's first mass-produced microprocessor. But even he is slowly beginning to question its consequences. "We are experiencing the dawn of a new age," Faggin says. "Companies like Google and Facebook are nothing but a series of microprocessors, while man is becoming a marginal figure."
Digitization has been changing everyday life, affluence, work, living, loving and recreation for more than 40 years. But the political world has often failed to keep up when it comes to creating adequate basic rules, laws, supervision and management of the changes. Here, German Chancellor Angela Merkel uses an iPad during a debate in the Bundestag, Germany's parliament.
