( Four minute read)

The technology behind the atomic bomb only exists because of a cooperative hive mind: hundreds of scientists and engineers working together. The same unique intelligence and cooperation also underlies more positive advances, such as modern medicine and technology.

We owe our complex reasoning abilities to it, but we have similarities with everything else in nature; it would be astonishing if we didn’t.

We were once  “rational animals” pursuing knowledge for its own sake. Now more and more of us, thanks to the smart phone, are becoming Know it all Google it ‘brainless dead.

Human societies are built on collaborative activities. That means that the interactions of humans beings in their environmental contexts, situated in their historical locations, and with available technologies are always subject to the ecological and survival pressures that have existed since time immemorial.

In the world of self learning algorithms this is no longer true.

Take Mr Musk hopes that #Neuralink can be used to merge humans with computers, allowing them to interact with artificial intelligence simply by thinking, for instance.

It stands to reason, that It won’t be long in coming. Digitalised algorithmic citizenship, with a Neuralink’ Brain chips in the head owned by a Tec company. Driven by blockchain, without any reasoning, who will only cooperate if there is something in it for them.

Thank all the gods I wont be around to see it. AI intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by humans.

Consequently.

AI allows machines to increasingly approach human capacities for perception and reasoning.

This process is resulting in a hollowing-out of nation-state space through rescaling, undermining its heretofore privileged position as the only natural platform and geographical expression for the monopoly of sensory and political power so far.

Such frameworks cover demands for data privacy, ownership, sovereignty, donation, co-operation, self-determination, trust, access, and ethics as well as AI transparency, algorithmic automatization, and, ultimately, democratic accountability for digital citizenship, which inevitably may transform our current interpretation of the nation-state as ‘the clear and coherent mapping of a relatively culturally homogeneous group onto a territory with a singular and organized state apparatus of rule’ (Agnew Citation2017, 347) and its relationship with digital citizenship.

On the one hand, regarding the techno-political awareness of data, these dynamics involve addressing concerns about biometric technologies (e.g. vaccine passports), rolling out algorithmic identity tools for citizenship (e.g. the ongoing e-Residency policy framework) and engaging in counter-reaction to extractives data models (e.g. through digital rights claims).

The technology that defines us can also destroy worlds.

When we – Homo sapiens – first appeared about 200,000 years ago we weren’t alone. We shared the planet at least four other upright cousins; Neanderthals, Denisovans, the “hobbit” Homo floresiensis and a mysterious fourth group.

Humans aren’t the only species that kill each other. We’re not even the only species that fight wars. But our intelligence and social prowess mean we can do so on an unprecedented scale.

We have an immense capacity for good. At the same time we risk driving our closest relatives to extinction and destroying the only planet we have ever called home.

It’s impossible to get a good clear understanding of people’s thoughts about their future without talking directly with them.

Somehow, our language abilities need to be “switched on”,

As far as we know, we are the only creatures trying to understand where we came from. We also peer further back in time, and further into the future, than any other animal.

Digital Citizenship Education is now vital.

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

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com