The Future of Porn in the Gigabit Age

CYBERSPACE—In its continuing effort to mark the 25th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, authors of a recent Pew Research Center paper titled "Killer Apps in the Gigabit Age" asked a whole slew of technology experts what sorts of changes to the way we live they believe will take place once we are fully ensconced in the Gigabit Age, which refers to the hopefully near future when every community in the United States can claim Gigabit connectivity (1,000 Mbps). Such communities already exist in the United States—two, to be exact. According to the Pew paper, "Gigabit connectivity... is still quite limited in the United States; while average speeds vary greatly, gigabit connections are 50-100 times faster than the average fixed high-speed connection. The expectation of most of the more than 1,400 people who participated in this canvassing of experts by the Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center is that as this connectivity becomes more common, online life will be significantly changed, though the precise contours of the change are not fully clear. Indeed, the New York Times recently reported that people in two US communities with gigabit systems are finding 'it’s hard to know what to do with it.'" In its coverage of the paper, TechWorld took special note of holograms and 3D porn as things the experts believe will experience vast growth and development as bandwidth capacities continues to expand, but in fact only two of the experts mentioned porn specifically, though it can safely be said that anyone working in virtual spaces knows from experience that wherever humans gather, virtually or not, sex happens sooner rather than later. This fact has been demonstrated across any number of virtual platforms, even ones that either outlawed or dissuaded users from getting randy. Unless they were technically prevented from "touching," they touched, frolicked and fucked. So it makes perfect sense that pornography was acknowledged by two of the experts as an enduring force of nature that will likely realize an explosion of possibilities when the pipes fatten to gargantuan Gigabit proportions. The two porn-mentions are, as follows: Anita Salem, a design research consultant, responded, “The operating system will be integrated into the human body. I predict killer apps that control objects through thought, drug implants, virus detectors, stimulants and narcotics, super powers (X-ray vision, super hearing, self-emitting light), instant communications, virtual reality games, privacy and identity hiding tools, virtual pornography, robotic pets, robotic personal helpers, virtual wars, forced sterilizations, or birth control.” Kathryn Campbell, a partner with Primitive Spark, Inc., an interactive marketing firm based in Los Angeles, responded, “No question, bandwidth will play the same kind of transformational role in reshaping society that railroads and freeways played in our past. I am most excited about the potential for truly immersive entertainment and communications as bandwidth continues to explode. On the entertainment front, something like the Holodeck concept first shown in the old Star Trek series is actually within our grasp by 2025. Games, films, shopping for cars and vacations, and (of course) porn will all become immersive 3D experiences. So will the 2025 version of that primitive tool that we call Skype today. Catching up with my sister in Papua, New Guinea, will be almost like being there in a decade (or at least I earnestly hope so!)” The entire paper is worth a read, though, if only to inspire hours of languid fantasies about the coming Gigabit Age. "Killer Apps in the Gigabit Age" can be read here.