Just come back from the doctors, my first visit in the last several years that I have seen one locally. Well I passed muster with flying colours, well almost. At the moment I am haunted by the little shuffling old man saying 'bloody computers, bloody computers'. When he was told at the reception desk that he had to book an appointment online. Yes there is that big yawning chasm between those that do and those that don't. Of course he was directed to the other side of the desk so that the appointment could be made.
It is good to see of course that the computer giants are being brought to heel about the effect social media has on our young people. Not all young people of course but there is a worrying trend with false information posted online and the agitators stirring things up. It would be good that a 'truth verification' app followed us all around and quibbled when we did something wrong.
AI is already beginning to show its bad side, where are the philosophers for a start ready to add to the 'facts' we are shown as gospel truth. Has the internet become a 'tower of Babel'? Everyone must have 'free speech' no matter how their thinking goes. We must rely on education for the most of us.
How badly it can go wrong has manifested itself in the sweep to the right of authoritarian discussions or happenings on the street and in the thinking. We see it in this country when bullies such as Farage makes a play for power and gather large crowds who want to go back to an England that never really existed.
It is probably the fault of the internet and its wide influence over the world that we are experiencing this rift in cool commonsense action and it is another battle to be fought for sanity. In the end seven (or eight) billion people on this Earth can't really call their own views on the matter, it has to be by meetings and talking together that will resolve the matter.
So a rose to meditate on and perhaps a drink to remind us that humans can gather together in a convivial manner and discuss such things.
At least there is provision to make an appointment in person, but the day will soon come that 'I don't understand computers' will no long be an excuse.
ReplyDeleteI worry terribly about AI, and in spite of me quite old, I can see it affecting me in my lifetime as staff are replaced by AI.