Dr. Detlev Doherr is Professor in Informatics and Geoinformatics of the University of Applied Sciences Offenburg, Germany, since 1990. He received the degrees of diploma and Dr. rer. nat. from the University of Göttingen, Germany in 1983. After an employment at the German Rock salt and Potash industry, where he developed a Geographical Information System for mining and exploration together with IBM, he serves as Professor in Offenburg beginning in 1990. In 1992 he founded the Steinbeis-Transfer Center of Information Technology in Offenburg, which is part of the German Steinbeis- Stiftung. Since 2001 he is working in the fields of digital libraries, Internet portals and virtual environments. He has more than 20 years experiences in developing of Internet based information systems combined with knowledge bases and artificial intelligence. His current interests include knowledge based computing, information technology, and history of natural sciences.

In the 19th century Alexander von Humboldt explored nature and was conceived a new vision of natural world that still influences our understanding of the nature itself. Since then the technical world has developed dramatically and influences our relationship to nature and our handling of the complexity and diversity of nature.

This presentation describes aspects of Humboldt' s vision of the natural world and consequences for a smarter world, which we likely are implementing by super computers under the risk of a technical colonialism by high developed computer intelligence in conflict with humanity.