This paper considers the nature of the information society and its perception as utopia or anti-utopia. Australia is already an information society, and in technological terms, is moving towards an advanced information society. However, recent evidence on the decreased rate of growth of the information sector in the United States, the growth in importance of such areas as biotechnology, and the rapidity with which distinctly different and important problems can appear, may cause the advanced information society to be relegated to just another rejected image of perceived future societies. Thus Australian policy-makers should be cautious about selecting it as a goal.