Today I finished off an audiobook ‘Daemon’ by Daniel Suarez. The plot invovles a dead character who has found a way to effect chilling social changes, ruling beyond the grave as it were.

He left behind tiny program instructions called ‘daemons’ all over the Internet to respond to events as reported by online news agencies.

The effect is one of a powerful artificial intelligence entity with the ability to control business conglomerates in order to bring about a social re-engineering he has designed prior to his death.

What has struck me about this sci-fi thriller is not so much the audacity of plot but the possibility of the plot given the level of connectivity in society today.

Depending on your point of view, the book is either an alarmist view of the world or a warning highlighting our blind trust in the use of technogy available to us.

Petsonally I struggle with these competing ideas. I am a web addict spending way too much time on the net. I also intimately aware how this technology had affected my personal life. The Internet is in no doubt changing us… one closet geek at a time.

I happen to be the most computer literate person in my immediate family. In other words I am a geek of sorts. Most geeks will be familiar with social moments, either with family or with friends where you are asked about what the next big thing on the web is.

While you may regret having to mention “we are headed for a sematic web”, here is an example  you may find useful to show them what is to come.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.