“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” This is a quote by Frank Herbert, author of Dune.
With the constant and rapid speeds of technology improving and our wants and desires being met at an astonishing pace, one wonders what price we’ll pay for all this seamless convenience available at the push of a button.
Easy access
However, there has been great breakthroughs in these innovations, our apps have allowed us to have easy and limitless access to transport, groceries, work meetings, interviews and even potential dates, despite how far we are.
As a child, I often saw my grandmothers travel great distances in the dark winter mornings to reach the taxi rank to do all her shopping in town, while I watched them leave from a foggy window.
Then in the late afternoons I’d rush up the hill to help my grandmothers limping and bearing their heavy grocery bags as they’d walk toward the house, now an Uber can drop you right at the front of your doorstep.
These transport conveniences and measures when one can negotiate a taxi fare, are inventions I wish my grandparents could enjoy during their lifetime as they didn’t have a drivers license and mainly counted on the main basic forms of public transport.
However, this is not negating the fact that many passengers have also been held hostage, robbed or scammed by criminals posing as taxi drivers and one has to keep the elders mindful to stay vigilant and beware spam calls where people are posing to provide friendly help.
Beware the scroll
Its frightening to see how many senior citizens are falling into the trap of believing artificially generated content which includes songs by fake AI artists.
Often I’d have to tell my family that they are not listening to a real person and see their shock at this discovery.
This also shows how far technology has transitioned and become interconnected into our personal lives.
The old and young are more glued to their cellphones than ever, especially those who work remotely.
Our time spent staring at a screen, editing videos, watching tutorials and doom-scrolling for funny videos on TikTok and Instagram have become quite alarming as it’s clear to see how addictive it is to have your algorithm feed you content you wish to see.
Every scroll to the next video feels like a reward that suits your wants, desires or beliefs, but this loop can hold you hostage to seeing your ego stroked and your ideas validated depending on the nature of your likes, reposts and views.
Once you’ve watched a TikTok on a classic movie, now your feed will make sure you see a similar one as it seems you have an interest in this genre.
Its a subtle but pernicious formula of advertising where your “attention” becomes the means of generating more potential customers, subscribers and profit.
This abundance of convenience can make us as sloppy as the AI content we’re prone to seeing.
Our overstimulated eyes are becoming numb amidst all our work deadlines and schedules we balance.
Our concern has become obsessed with the output, while the process is becoming seen as laborious and boring, but as research shows, the overuse of AI is producing an alarming amount of mistakes and plagiarism as well, as information is scrapped and sourced without impunity and hardly any ethics involved.
The fear of being left behind in the age of AI are causing people to lose their individuality for the sake of profit and to become so robotic, unimaginative as the Chatbots become their spokespeople and their voice, an artificial mimicry.
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