Abstract
This century has been an extraordinary period for human society. In virtually every aspect of our lives we have experienced changes which have left us simultaneously stimulated and confused, optimistic and full of fear. Science and its child, technology, have driven those changes more than any other single factor. The process of scientific discovery has accelerated at unbelievable rates. And the time lag between a basic discovery and its practical applications in human society has almost disappeared.
Information is central to the entire process of scientific discovery and the creation of new technologies, affecting both the substance of science and its applications.
Our individual and collective decisions concerning what information is important, and who should have access to it, shape the long-term character of our society. This paper reviews the emerging role of information in human history, examines the values and ideology which underlie our current implicit information policies, and calls for the development of an explicit global information policy to help shape the emerging information society.