The 'Father Of The Internet' Vint Cerf Says We Need To Build Safe, Long-Lasting Apps For Future

Vinton Cerf is widely regarded to be one of the fathers of the Internet, alongside Bob Kahn, co-inventor of TCP/IP protocol that we use today. His interest in computing began at an early age, having had a chance to tinker with programming at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) when he was just 17. Now 73 years old, Cerf says his only regret is that he doesn’t have another 50 years to see where technology is going to go next.

Cerf is a pioneer in the field of computing and the Internet. He was a manager for the United States' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at a time when it was funding TCP/IP development, before moving to the private sector. In an interview with Computer World, the now Google VP talks about the things in technology that excite him, and terrify him.

When asked what he believes is the next big thing on the tech sector’s radar, Cerf responds that it’s all about the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence. “While there are all kinds of benefits associated with that, there also are a lot of risks. We see the headlines about these kinds of devices being attacked by hackers. There are all kinds of issues of privacy and safety and security.”

“There’s also AI and machine learning. We are finding all kinds of powerful ways of applying those technologies. But I worry about turning over too much autonomous authority to a piece of software,” he adds.

Cerf says that one of the biggest out-of-the-blue technological developments for him came in the form of neural networks, and their processing capabilities. “A 150-layer neural network is pretty astonishing,” he said. “When using the neural network to detect diabetic neuropathy, computers did better than experts did.”

Cerf also believes that one of the biggest issues with software today is that none of them are ever bug free. Despite over 70 years of collective experience, programmers have not yet found a way to write software that’s completely bug-free. He believes that won’t change anytime soon, so the way to counteract that is to train AI to detect bugs in a program that a developer may miss.?

Of course, he also says another major problem in the tech industry is malware, and other malicious attacks like DDoS. “All those bad things are the result of people who don’t have your best interests in mind,” he said. “People have found new ways of being harmful and we have to invent both technical and legal means to limit the damage they can cause.”

As for the obstacles that lie ahead, Cerf is most worried that the progress the industry has made so far, as well as basic human interactions, will be lost to time. “We’re looking at the digital dark age,” he said.

“We’re generating huge amounts of digital content all the time. We’re tweeting and blogging and taking photos and making spreadsheets and making movies. To see them or interact with them, we need software. Will that software be available 100 years from now or 500 years from now?

I worry 100 years from now our descendants may not know much about us or be able to read our emails or tweets or documents because nobody saved them or the software you need to read them won’t exist anymore." He further suggested that the technology community has a lot of work ahead to ensure digital content is preserved for a long period of time.