Well, I’ll be honest with you the last month has been an interesting (partial) break from the tethers of technology.
We moved across the country - and rather than Google Fiber being the “internet of the future” as promised - it was just a lot of heartache and ridiculousness.
We were without internet for weeks (yes, I recognize this is a MAJOR first world problem) but it was an interesting realization of how much I’ve come to rely on internet day-to-day.
This forced-off-the-grid-challenge got me thinking about how, while I fully oppose the idea of surgically implanting a chip in my brain/body to further entangle us with technology in the future, my emotional/mental reliance on wifi is already pretty strong.
When did that happen?
I won’t get into how Big Tech hires psychologists & other behavioral science experts to design products that appeal to our brain chemistry and natural instincts… but let’s just say it IS interesting to recognize how much I’ve grown to rely on the digital connection, unbeknownst to me, until it’s taken away.
If artificial intelligence does “go bad” in the future - would we even be able to disconnect from it? The idea of becoming a luddite is appealing at times but the idea of a world without Google maps also sounds like a scary, scary place.
I actually started this newsletter after having a conversation with my mom about her thought-provoking dream…
A bit of background, my partner works in AI so my mom hasn’t been able to freely avoid thinking about the comings of artificial intelligence - and I guess those thoughts bled into her dreamworld.
In this particular dream she was getting into her car to drive to work, but the car wouldn’t let her go because it was a public holiday (Juneteenth).
She kept trying to convince the car to drive since she had to catch-up on important work items while everyone was off but the car refused…
This brings up some interesting considerations.. like biases from the training data.. do we need guardrails.. what if AI realizes humans are the problem?
Join us as we discuss these ideas in future posts.
Until next time, humans.