SETI or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence has been run by the BOINC software platform of the Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States since May 17, 1999. The SETI project was set up to meet two main objectives. The first one was to detect intelligent life outside Earth by supporting an observational analysis and the second goal was to prove the viability and practicality of the 'volunteer computing' concept. Although, the first purpose has not been accomplished yet, the second one has, and very well. Originally planned to be utilized by fifty thousand to one hundred thounsand home computers, nowadays, SETI@home is the largest distributed computing project with more than five millon participants wolrwide. At the end of 2009, SETI@home had the ability to compute over 769 teraFLOPS, while the world's fastest supercomputer, the Cray Jaguar, achieved 1759 teraFLOPS. Along with other BOINC’s projects like Milkyway@home or Einstein@home, SETI@home is the third largest computing project that has the exploration of interstellar-space phenomena as its primary purpose.
How does it all work? Well, the radio telescopes known as the “radio SETI” catch narrow-bandwidth radio signals, which can be prodused only by man-made sources like radars, satellites, or TV stations. Therefore the detection of such signals would proove the existence of extraterrestrial technology. The data are analyzed digitally, so the more computing power is available, the bigger chance that an alien signal will be caught up. Since the concentrated computing power in a form of supercomputer was quite expensive, SETI@home came up with an idea to benefit from the capacity of home computers that would get involved on the 'volunteer computing' concept. All you need to do, is to install a BOINC software, which is displayed as a screensaver when your computer is idling. Unlike other doing-nothing screensavers, the SETI@home screensaver shows how your computer is processing the SETI data that has been downloaded from the internet. Moreover, the software can also benefit from your free CPU while the computer is active.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQpj7bfRqBo&feature=related
However, what is the purpose of getting involved in such volunteer computing projects as SETI@home? A survey has revealed that main reasons for joining the volunteer-computing community were “contribution to a good thing” for 60 % respondents and “wish to use the whole capacity of their computers” for 20% of participants in the Seti@home project. It means that there are a few major motivation factors like pure pleasure from creating things, one’s interest in a certain goal, or spreading social connections. Protagonists of volunteer computing and simillar Wikinomics concepts see this form of collective intelligence as a huge step forward, almost a new paradigm. On the other hand, are there only positive effects of the volunteer computing and Wikinomics in general? Critics as VanDijck and Nieborg point out that there are also indispensable drawbacks, for example the motives of participation in diverse forms of collective intelligence, the mass averageness, and the fact that Wikinomics may be just a hype. Actually, there is a whole range of weaknesses, which are often denounced, like we can see on Metacrap website.
The fact is that there will be always people trying to make money from everything new that appears, thus keeping wheels of economics turning, which is quite positive, though. In fact, I see the essential apple of discord, between collective-intelligence protagonists and antagonists, in the conflict between the traditional view of ownership and results of the currently running "liberalization of information." The fact that the most important part of today’s economics, the information, can be easily transfer without owner’s permission, will, or even awareness, has made the exchange of information much easier and its flow more rapid. Because of this, I think that we might want to give up the old strict delimitation of ownership in order to support the positive effects of informational liberalization like for instance the Creative Commons license already does. However, the speed of innovation, which has undeniably become a key to success, is still inhibited by the traditionally tough law of property. Although concepts of collective intelligence such as Wikinomics infringe the traditional institute of property law significantly, it does so in everyone’s favor, even though someone’s favor is bigger than others’, one would say, as always.
All in all, if the new model of ownership liberalization helps us to find extraterrestrial intelligence or new medicine against a serious disease, I will think of it like of an interesting opportunity how to contribute to the world development, which is worth giving it a shot.
sources:
Pierre Lévy: Collective Intelligence
http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question204.htm
Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [online]. St. Petersburg (FL) : Wikimedia Foundation [cit. 2009-01-10]. InnoCentive.
No comments:
Post a Comment