The future of GIS technology is wide open. In a 1988 article in the American Cartographer, Jack Dangermond, founder of ESRI (one of the first companies to provide commercially available GIS capability) offered this view of the future of GIS: "It is possible that the wider availability of automated mapping technology will encourage users to map-in the cartographic or GIS sense-the human brain, the way in which the AIDS virus travels thorough the human body or the natural environment of bacteria at a scale of perhaps 10,000,000:1. Using this technology, users may begin to map the seeming aspatial worlds of human decision making or crowd phenomena, or more effectively map the multiple
dimensions of time, space and self perception in which every human being exists."
GIS technology as a "standard" for database management is in its infancy. As recently as 1995 Ian McHarg stated in a GIS World interview that GIS technology is not being utilized to its full potential. He commented that he did not know of a single example in this country where a government agency has undertaken a truly comprehensive implementation of GIS technology (47).
Clearly the use of this technology has a long way to go. It is also clear that the technology has already become an essential component to many of the basic systems of our society. The only conclusion that is possible at this time is that the technology, however it is identified, may well become one of the most powerful standards that has ever been available for the management and distribution of information.