( A four-minute New Year Read)

We live in a world that is being connected and disconnected at the same time.

Two related facts.

But don’t worry we now have Algorithms that both filter and recommend.

All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.

The reality is that there’s no way of knowing where our generation is going in terms of technology and our reliance on it.

The year 2018 will be the year in which human interaction decreases the more technology increases. While social media fosters an environment of connectedness and belonging in the digital world, it also forces a disconnect between people in the real world.

With false news and social media, words are on their last legs, with print for the high jump, we will have more arse holes 2018 twittering shaping the world.

Where two or three words gather together there is a great danger that thought might be present. However we once again don’t have to worry because we have the option to log off and unplug anytime we want, so it’s up to us to decide if we want to engage with the actual world or the virtual one.

Technology may well be is a societal advancement that has enabled our generation to do things previous generations never would have thought possible.

However:

The biggest problem we have is accepting each other’s differences.

“Technology makes us forget what we know about life.”

82 per cent of smart phone users said they rarely (if ever) powered off their phones last year, while less than 43 per cent of 13- to 18-year-olds saw any value in ever going unplugged.

Why?

This is the Eternal Question to which there is no answer, and yet the only one that has to be asked.

Take a look around you.

Every day we becoming more and more desensitized. Save this Save that while saving the planet is being left to technology.

Rapid progress in machine learning has raised the prospect that algorithms will one day be able to do most or all of the mental tasks currently performed by humans.

But the real problem is how one might design a highly intelligent machine to pursue realistic human goals safely.

This is very poorly understood.

Even if advanced machine intelligence does not get ‘out of control’, it is likely to be very socially disruptive and it is more likely it could be used as a destabilizing weapon of war.

It seems that most of us are in a mental wasteland inhabited by those upon whom the portcullis ( A sudden blotting out of all normal thought) has fallen.

How did we get to a place where the content on our phones is more interesting than the world around us?

In today’s society, scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram has taken precedence over the real events scrolling through our daily lives.

Being “connected” to machinery 24/7 is affecting our ability to connect with our lives and the people around us. 

Mechanical devices bait us into a make-believe life, as we are slowly being pulled away from a sense of who we are and what really matters.

Modern life is making us lonelier.

It’s not the technology that’s the problem; it’s us for abusing it.

We’ve become more and more antisocial by relying on technology too heavily.

Maybe if we look up and away from the flashing images and colors on our most recent Safari search, we will actually enjoy the company of those around us. So instead of counting the number of likes, count the memories in your life, because at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

For the foreseeable future, it won’t be possible to take people out of the decision-making process, but the year 2018 will with the power of Profit Seeking Algorithms push us further down the road of hypnotic trance.

Technology is a valuable tool when used correctly. However, the law has to catch up with privacy and safety issues, not mention profit seeking algorithms. 

We’ve all heard about the power of algorithms—but Algorithms to Live is in my book to be avoided at all costs, if we are to value what is vital to us all. 

They are creating a world of such inequality that the scariest thing is the immense possibilities of these unregulated Algorithms will turn us and all that is necessary for a sustainable life into commodities to be exploited.

What can be done:

Education, Education is the only solution.

By this I mean education not for the market place but for the foundation of knowledge. Not just a narrow streamlined pipeline of mundane thoughts which doesn’t let you think outside the box and do things on your own.

Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Ecology, to name a few.

Dramatic changes are inevitable, we need to accept the fact on ground level that our education models are broken and paralyzed.

Perhaps we might well need computer algorithms to select the best candidate?

There’s no magic formula, freedom and dignity will not be found on social media, nor computed by algorithms.

There are too many parts of today’s conversations that can not be translated through technology.

Tearing apart the nation states and the world with ALGORITHMS is a

Disaster waiting to happen. No Robot with a brain full of algorithms is

going to have the the ability of an artist to have human empathy and an

appreciation of history; while also having the savvy self-awareness to

understand that their work merely takes its place in a greater culture

at large. Such art brings comfort in our modern secular world: where

spirituality seems to live in a foreign universe of yesteryear.

You’re more than a number.

how the mythical and quotidian usually overlap to

the point where the two become indistinguishable.

So join a club and organizations to make real friends.

Happy New year.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.