The Roam is finally on-line. And oh boy is there a party happening. A big virtual party. I'm invited but I have to bring my own ethanol. I'm excited about the Roam -- I really am. I can finally just walk through the probe archives like they are right here. Earlier I could browse the index, but to access any kind of detailed records I had to make a request that might be fulfilled anywhere up to 20 minutes later when the G. Agricola came into line of sight.
On the other hand, I can't bring myself to be as excited as the rest of the team. Let's consider the key features of a Roam:
1) Bandwidth. This was the technical problem that everyone obsessed about. It requires infrastructure that we didn't have. When we got here the ship's orbit defined when we could make transmissions and getting from one side of the planet to the other was simply impossible. Today Mission Support has finally installed and calibrated the last of 96 low orbit satellites in a constellation that provides continuous high-bandwidth coverage to the entire globe. Problem solved.
2) Constant creative activity. OK, we have 56 people, and they are very bright and working round the clock to discover and record new insights, theories and data. But compared to even the most backwater parts of the Terrestrial Roam that's pathetic. Just the local Roam in Potsdam had millions of participants at all times. And we were milliseconds from everyone else on Earth. Creative input here is like a desert wasteland.
3) Hoards of synthesists. Despite what others might argue, it's really the synthesists that make the Roam work. It isn't the raw data, creativity and content that make the Roam an experience that's -- I don't know -- fulfilling? Exciting? Enriching? Productive? Yes, all those things. But not because of what any one person adds to it. It's because of the untold hours of donated expertise to sort, categorize and synthesize the raw information. Many otherwise smart people think that this just hapens by itself. It doesn't. In a properly functioning Roam there are as many synthesists as original contributors.
4) Auditors. There we have enough numbers -- I mean everyone is an auditor, aren't they? And yet no one has enough independence to be genuinely objective. We're all working so closely together that I cannot help but consider how my own research is helped or hurt but how I link to someone else's results. Proper auditing requires not only peer review, but some detachment so that the review is not self-serving. We're a little too close to make those trade offs correctly.
So, yes, it's nice to have a Roam, but I think the novelty will wear off soon. People have set up facsimilies of the favorite social hubs that we visited before we left: Left Time, Quantum Cats, and Goo Works. Those were great with millions of real participants. With few real people and tons of stiff A.I.s trying to take up the slack I think it'll start to stink. The hubs that correlate Sigma 957 research data will thrive, and we'll figure out how to make it work with fewer people, but it will not be the full Roam experience. Call me a pessimist, but I don't want to get drawn into the mass dissilusionment.
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