World spec'mode

Human Blackbox Project (HBP)

In 2037, as the first data centers using DNA to store information begin to emerge, some public libraries around the world see this as an opportunity to undertake a new, large-scale digitization of their collections without having to rely on a third party for data storage. Indeed, since DNA allows for the storage of a massive amount of information in a very small space, there is no longer a need for bulky, energy-intensive servers, and it suddenly becomes much easier for a public library to manage its digital copies on-site. However, libraries are no longer the only ones accelerating the digitization of their content: they are quickly being joined by major museums such as the Louvre, the MoMA, and the Grand Egyptian Museum. This momentum in the creation of “backups” for cultural heritage institutions is fueled in particular by the emergence of certain companies that, not content with simply being at the forefront of new information storage technologies, now offer digitization services to cultural heritage institutions around the world, as well as to various companies and organizations that wish to keep their digitized archives in-house. Add to this the recent craze for time capsules and knowledge arks, and many companies and heritage institutions around the world will quickly join forces to form a network of stakeholders with a single goal: to ensure the long-term preservation of the world’s intellectual heritage. This network will thus form what is known as the “Human Blackbox Project” (HBP), whose various members have set themselves the goal of digitizing their entire heritage by 2050, using the latest mass data storage solutions to do so. From the project’s inception, “partnerships” have emerged—that is, special relationships between certain project members, in which one member acts as a guarantor for the other: the idea being that, in the event of an archive’s destruction, a digital duplicate of that archive exists elsewhere, at a partner institution acting as guarantor. At the same time, certain countries and UNESCO will begin to support the HBP project and provide a portion of the necessary funding. While disparities in preservation may initially exist between developed and developing countries, UNESCO hopes that these will be largely eliminated by mid-century. From now on, cultural heritage no longer consists solely of a collection of items scattered across the Earth, as was the case until now, but also of a collection of small data storage devices, each of which is equivalent to an entire museum or library.