Digital technology is intricately woven into our lives.
It is almost impossible to do without in our tech-economy and data or byte-driven world.
Every day technology is advancing to such a level that more and more universe of information systems are compressed into small silver wares and metallic devices called phones.
ROM and RAM sizes of phones and computers are increasingly and foreverly being upgraded.
Whole libraries of assorted information are stored on phones and smart phone opens up access to unimaginable vistas of information resources.
Less than 80 years ago, if you wanted to do research, you traveled far to distant libraries and swam in an ocean of books in attempt to find what is relevant.
Today, the same is a matter of entering the approaiate keywords in the relevant search engines and databases. And then, viola. You come face-to-face with a mass of helpful and relevant resources.
The world has changed, and continues to change.
One recent estimate puts the number of mobile phones currently in the world at 15 plus billion.
Virtually all adults today, use phones even if not smart ones and even though not all have internet access.
But the world would get there. Right to freedom of information (access to it, dissemination of information, and expression of knowledge) is considered fundamental in international human rights law.
Accordingly, Mark Zuckerberg is already working on a project designed to bring free internet to neglected/underserved peoples in developing countries based upon the principles exposed in the preceding paragraph.
But the people would have to access the internet only through enabled devices pre-installed with his metaverse platform. And the question would then arise, how free would such an intervention be, if only it works through compulsory subscription to the metaverse? Apparently, it leaves the beneficiary with no choice. Opt in and have the internet or opt out and lose your access to it. Even whilst on the platform, big brother Mark would retain some right to censor your expressions.
The tech paradox is like so:
It is that we continue to design the most advanced AI systems with the hopes that it would bring us increased freedoms and liberties, but it turn deprives us of other less obvious but perhaps more important freedoms.
We once lived on farms – in natural, rural and agrarian communities. Then we advanced in technology and we started to live in cities – in industrialised urban areas. During the industrial revolution we also transited from living on wood an papyrus to paper. And now the next revolution is driving us to live on the internet. We are netizens.
Zuckerberg and all the guys in big tech would ensure that. Every passing day, there’s one more new app, designed that you may download onto your device to make life easier.
Perharps, someday there might just be an app which helps us to download food into our own stomach or helps a man to impregnate his own wife. Ridculous, I know. But you do get my point. Slowly but steadily, we’re getting to the very extremes of tech, where many an ethical issue would arise, especially about the fate of humanity.
Nay, rather. We’re matching there at rocket speed.
Research is currently ongoing as to how to imbue robots with superintelligence or at least the same intelligence as man. And should the day come when those robots go out of man’s control, that would spell disaster for humankind. Yet, this agenda is seriously being pursued.
Elon Musk currently funds research into how much of the cureently existing knowledge on anything may be downloadable into a microchip that can then be implanted into the human brain.
And so many other mind boggling stuff been researched or developed.
I have often wondered. Scientists say that man is hundreds of millions years old on the planet. Yet, is it not surprising that all of the major advancements in science and technology have happened in less than 150 years of his entire existence on the planet.
So, I ask: what on God’s heavens has the early man been doing all those years? Scientists would have us belief that he was running around half naked for hundreds of thousands of years chasing antelopes. Then, only a few years ago, his brain evolved at such a rate that has led him to the most witty inventions nearing the capacity of a god. Something certainly doesn’t add up about evolutionary theory, here. And I would rather not get into that now.
Sorry, that was a digression.
My point is, man has achieved the unthinkable in the last 100 years or so. And it would seem there is nothing stopping him.
During the Covid-19 lockdowns we were able to still communicate, do our jobs to some measure and reach the world through diverse adaptive technologies: Zoom, Google Meets, Skype, etc.
That is a good thing.
Man has conquered the air even more than birds, and has started to explore outer space. And even that too, is only a matter of time.
Countries all across the world have developed advanced military capabilities that modern warfare do not require plenty human capital. Drone systems, transcontinental bombastic ballistic missiles, nuclear and chemical weapons, standby robotic armies etc. There is no thought that man has not experimented with.
Today, sonographic scans exists that are just the size of a small botton-like chip. You swallow it, and it takes 3D high-resolution images of your entire gut as it travels down. You pass it out in stool, and the chip is retrieved and analysed. Thus aiding accurate diagnoses of gastrointestinal conditions.
In virtually every sector one thinks of, man has excelled the limits.
And similar contemplations led the Isreali historian and philosopher and professor, Yuaval Noah Harrari to write a book in 2015 titled “Homo Deus”.
In that book, Harrari basically traces the origins of civilisation from the early man to the mordern man who has superseded any creature before it in intellection and scientific advancement.
Harari recounts the course of history while describing key landmarks in the human experience and ethical issues in relation to his historical survey. He notes that Homo Deus (from Latin “Homo” meaning man or human and “Deus” meaning God) deals more with the supraabilities acquired by humans.
And that this acquisition of godlike capacities (by means of technology) has transformed man from homo sapiens (the wise or intelligent man) to the godlike man.
Meaning the big tech era ushers in man who has been elevated to the position of a God. Thus, there is no god but man. Man will be his own god.
This should tell you where the whole agenda on AI and big data, and metascience will ultimately lead.
The quest for superlative intelligence.
My aim in this treatise and in similar ones that may follow isn’t to make you technology-averse. Technology in it self has no intrinsic goodness or badness. But use and purpose does. And men do as well as their agendas.
A knife is a pretty good technology. But it may be used to perform a surgery or cut tubers, should it be a good knife or it may be used to murder someone.
Technology tends to be a two-edged sword. And all technological advances raises ethical problems.
My aim in the coming days or weeks will be to help you appreciate how important it is to think Christianly about technology and how it is changing our lives. As well what might be a healthy interaction of a Christian faithful with technology in a changing world.
Mark Godwin
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