A nervous system for humanity: Making health, financial, logistics, and transportation networks work

摘要

Most of the functions of our society are based on networks designed during the late 1800s, and are modeled after centralized water systems. The spread of mobile cellular networks, and particularly the sensors contained in mobile telephones and cars, allow these networks to be reinvented as much more active and reactive control networks. Because the demands placed on these networks are due to human behavior, the key technical challenge in building control systems for them is the ability to sense, model, and shape the relevant human behaviors. The ability to create such inte- grated human-computer network systems will transform the economics of health, finance, logistics, and transportation.