Toon.Pics is an independent research project of the Informational Structures Research Lab -

we conduct research on the following topics:
Informational Structures - Networks - AI - Ethics - Society - Systems - Humanities - and Toon.Pics is one of our labs of applied AI :-)

Actual Research Project: AI - the next-level digital divide?

Short introduction reading ...

The digital divide has been an issue since the increased use of computers and the associated ability to communicate and obtain information freely. In the 1980s, access to the nascent new medium was reserved for a few insiders who were able to type endless codes to launch certain applications on the devices available at the time. Establishing a network connection via modem required know-how and a lot of effort. Graphical interfaces with menu navigation were a long way off in the technical field at that time. This changed significantly with the introduction of the WorldWideWeb.

With the simplification of the previously very complicated entry into the various network services, it was also possible for technical laypersons to gain access. What had previously been a primarily technical hurdle thus became a more or less socially conditioned one. This type of exclusion thus became an issue for the first time, because previously, the use of network services was an activity reserved for very few specialists. With the opening up of the network world by means of browsers and links - the WorldWideWeb is based on the work of the British scientist Tim Berners Lee at Cern in 1989 - the WWW began to become a phenomenon of the masses. Very slowly at the beginning, but after an almost linear rate of increase in the first few years, the development of the frequency of use of the WWW showed an exponential growth curve from around 1996, both in the corporate and private sectors.

Access to the Internet, the possibilities to obtain information, possibly also to provide it, to communicate and to participate in a discourse, thus became an important asset in the sense of Max Weber's interpretation, who had stated: "To 'assets' belong not only material goods. But rather: all opportunities ..." Thus, all those who were not granted this fortune, who were too poor or too old to participate in the new medium, became victims of the "digital divide." This interpretation of the digital divide is still a topic in the sociopolitical context, although no longer to the same extent as twenty years ago, but noticeable, for example, in the discussion about broadband expansion for the fastest possible connection to the network, in the emphasis on the importance of notebooks or tablets in schools. .... a.s.o