Long but sure road for distortion

The computer now occupies an exemplary place in our lives, making it easier for us. But did it make us smarter?

I will not return to the risks of human loss or digitalization in our industrial processes, and I must admit that the two lessons I have repeatedly addressed in this blog and their importance concern me.

Beyond the detrimental effects I can inflict, there is one more thing to note: our progressive but inevitable decay. The formula is a bit blunt, some may exaggerate it, but I maintain my position.

In a blog post published in November 2019 (Lust for absurdity: The incurable evil?), I quoted the 2006 American film “Ideography”, a satire (and prediction) about the future of society, dystopia. . I fear that this process is not limited to the United States, however it has taken a good start.

To illustrate my point, I will quote the failure of Vega Launcher on November 16, 2020. The cause was quickly identified: the reversal of two power cables due to human error. In 2021 such “abomination” should be analyzed beyond purely technical and programmatic aspects:

– “Numerologists” will inevitably see the water being brought to their plant: the fewer humans are in the process loop, the less we will be misunderstood. Is it easy?

– There appears to be no incompetence or negligence in the investigation (out of a total of 16 of the 15 hits in the previous scenes, this is not surprising).

– The reason was a flaw in the boarding practice: experienced staff knew how to fill in the gaps in the document, but it was possible that the message had not been sent to the new board, who should have been instructed to apply for what was recommended “by letter”.

It should be recognized that there is not much room for reflection, which promotes the multiplication of the former, between processes, standards and information technology. We have come to a certain robotization of our intellectual activity, the place of “freedom” is gradually reduced over the years.

Whenever, to do our job, we are forced into the maze of processes and standards, and when we rely on information technology tools that have no control over the content, it is difficult to take the necessary distance for “quiet” reflection. The existence of our gray matter. So we “apply” without asking questions (we don’t have time to ask anymore).

About ten years ago, I complained to a colleague of the European Space Agency about my harassment with my computer: he responded not without humor, but without realism, which is not the PC that was at my service, on the contrary. Aggressive infiltration of ads on our private computer during a short search on the Internet, Google It creates a point of progress rather than what we consider to be our desires, showing the extent to which our free will loses its rights in favor of the machine that entitles us.

With the three latest information we can plan for ourselves in the future:

– The GPD-3 neural network, the largest language model with 175 billion parameters, can write a text that, from a few indications, stands up to the standards of popular writers.

– Toyota is developing a complete robot city with artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous cars for its 2,000 employees.

– IISM (Institute of Information Systems and Marketing) works to focus more on serving AI people. Is AI a valuable support or job killer? » (This proves that AI can be a source of questions). For this (I quote), “They follow a socio-technological paradigm designed to strike a good balance between technological opportunities, organization, business objectives and the interests of the individual.”. That said, we are assured immediately, aren’t we?

AI, robotization, digitalization, these big “revolutions” all have an official goal of solving our difficult tasks: so the machine will be as hard to think as it is to allow us to do it. Everything becomes brilliant: car, house, clothes; Bombs do too! Man, apparently, does not seem to benefit from this development. But does he really like it? Suspicion is allowed … and regulating childhood dreams proposed by a woman selected from Poitiers in April may be part of this approach: because dreaming is no longer a good way to think.