There's been much talk about spam over IM on Jabber.org's standards-jig list. One of my reflections is that spam is just the tip of the iceberg of the information we have to filter and get way to much of. Spam isn't exactly something we want, but the sheer amount and constant stream of it has to be a harbinger of the real-time Internet and things to come.
With the real-time Internet we'll be getting a deluge of information, non-stop. A lot of this information will be about some sort of change, and will most likely be something we do want to know about. With the increase in the rate of change as we approach the singularity, we will be so inundated with useful information that we just won't know what to do with all of it, much less keep up with it.
Most likely it'll be our machines that keep up with it, and we just won't know what's going on behind the scenes. That has to be some sort of inflection point. Perhaps that's when the machines become our new overlords?
