There are so much data available out
there, and with expanding ‘Internet of Things’ this is bound to increase
exponentially, that big data is now unfortunately seen as new oil. Huge
unstructured information is being retrieved and channelized through cognitive
immersive technology. Data with
augmented intelligence has now created possibilities of better reasoning,
hypothesizing or seeking correlations for further study, and essentially better
decisions and understanding. Unfortunately though, data is also limiting into a
new feudal order. Feudalism was nurtured through land ownership while Capitalism
thrived with proprietorship over machinery. And now control over data is
creating a new order of Dataism. Societies where feudal norms are strong, where
capitalism is the interplay of cronyism and nepotism, and where moral ethical frameworks
are weak, there is a serious threat that has potential for cataclysmic impact
on the lives of common people. Their world is expected to shrink further and
life made more meaningless. Where humans are treated as slaves, expendable
commodities, for entitled few, and where exploitations of weak and sycophancy
for powerful is a norm then things are going to get much tougher. The situation
becomes much bleaker when you realize that the elite section is highly insecure
–as they are effete and incompetent, that adds to the tyranny of control, the
brutal control. There is a strong tradition –indeed a culture, of fixers and
manipulators nurtured by sycophancy hinged power centers that keep shifting
wherever there is gravy to lick. It has array of rituals to please and
propitiate to whichever be the power.
Data
has become intrusive, and is used to create psychological profile and
attributes of individuals and classify people into different groups of
consumers for targeted sales and marketing campaign. It is used to influence
choices individual makes, even insecurities are used for manipulations, and now
it is being taken to next level with cognitive data. Social media is all about
building the user base. How do I drive lots of engagement? Building engagement is
important in this money metric game, and they don’t care about the nature of
engagement, this engagement-based business model that incentivizes the most mindless
things that harm the fabric of society. It’s consistently trying to trigger
fear and anger to get the outrage cycle going, because outrage is what makes
you be more deeply engaged. You spend more time on the site and you share more
stuff. Therefore, you’re going to be exposed to more ads, and that makes you
more valuable. The social-media giants have become
“attention merchants,” bent on hooking users no matter the consequences. “Engagement” is the euphemism for the metric,
but in practice it evolved into an unprecedented machine for behavior
modification with everyone under surveillance by their devices and
receiving calculated stimulus to modify them. Digital networks are creating
mass behavior-modification regimes, manipulating minds, trapped in feeder
bubbles. Even original good intention winds up empowering its opposite.
As they say dataism is the singularity, an all knowing omnipresent processing system based on the universal faith in the power of algorithm. While the real emerging issue is that people are not able to assign moral agency to algorithms. For instance Trump’s narrow victory appears to have been fashioned, at least in part, by a covert appeal to the insecurity, religious fervor or racism of voters willing to rely on social media for information about the world. “Those who financed and carried out this ugly propaganda campaign were careful to avoid having their names associated with such lies and distortions. They were also unwilling to openly argue and defend their ideas”. These kinds of intrusions have been happening all the time through advertisements where human emotions are relentlessly targeted and society measured at stunted adolescent cravings. Societies where myths and truths are persistently kept blurred, perceptions are constantly pushed into authentic, so as to ease manipulation and domination is going to be particularly at risk.
It is therefore incumbent on us to insist on primacy of free will. You can have all my data but you cannot manipulate my will, therefore my decisions and choices. Humanity must be retrieved from these cannibalizing creatures. Societies like India where every innovative technology has much significance as manipulative technology to control choices of common people this must be insisted. Children must be taught on these matters, hence critical thinking must be insisted as part of inquisitiveness. Quite an arduous task for societies where elders are severely compromised to fatalism in the mounting hopeless burden of realities that works in moral vacuum and quick fixes. Where people are ready to fleece lives (even souls of dead), brutalize thoughts. In such a situation atleast the minimum hinge i.e. hard earned money must be safeguarded from these exploiters, and must be judiciously spent. To start with anything that is sold through advertisement must be avoided, they have nurtured mediocrities from film and cricket as recruit of art and sport –a hint of competence for common people, that is kept so low that it is tantalizingly reachable in the process has degraded the society to trap people. The society has been constantly bludgeoned into adolescent dealings –that market proposes, which has now become more intrusive with new technology. Perceptions and exaggerations have severely compromised the society, as it is readied for exploitation. A beginning can be made with younger generation.
As they say dataism is the singularity, an all knowing omnipresent processing system based on the universal faith in the power of algorithm. While the real emerging issue is that people are not able to assign moral agency to algorithms. For instance Trump’s narrow victory appears to have been fashioned, at least in part, by a covert appeal to the insecurity, religious fervor or racism of voters willing to rely on social media for information about the world. “Those who financed and carried out this ugly propaganda campaign were careful to avoid having their names associated with such lies and distortions. They were also unwilling to openly argue and defend their ideas”. These kinds of intrusions have been happening all the time through advertisements where human emotions are relentlessly targeted and society measured at stunted adolescent cravings. Societies where myths and truths are persistently kept blurred, perceptions are constantly pushed into authentic, so as to ease manipulation and domination is going to be particularly at risk.
It is therefore incumbent on us to insist on primacy of free will. You can have all my data but you cannot manipulate my will, therefore my decisions and choices. Humanity must be retrieved from these cannibalizing creatures. Societies like India where every innovative technology has much significance as manipulative technology to control choices of common people this must be insisted. Children must be taught on these matters, hence critical thinking must be insisted as part of inquisitiveness. Quite an arduous task for societies where elders are severely compromised to fatalism in the mounting hopeless burden of realities that works in moral vacuum and quick fixes. Where people are ready to fleece lives (even souls of dead), brutalize thoughts. In such a situation atleast the minimum hinge i.e. hard earned money must be safeguarded from these exploiters, and must be judiciously spent. To start with anything that is sold through advertisement must be avoided, they have nurtured mediocrities from film and cricket as recruit of art and sport –a hint of competence for common people, that is kept so low that it is tantalizingly reachable in the process has degraded the society to trap people. The society has been constantly bludgeoned into adolescent dealings –that market proposes, which has now become more intrusive with new technology. Perceptions and exaggerations have severely compromised the society, as it is readied for exploitation. A beginning can be made with younger generation.
It
is our reason that help us judge, to theorize our experiences. It is the reason
that gives us sense of freedom in a brief but what is essentially determined
frame of life followed by death. Reason also gives us the unique ability to
understand reality, as it unfolds, and equips us to discern –through experimentation
and thinking, to decipher as to which reality is absolute in nature and which
is mutable. To submit willingly to what is discerned as immutable necessities
of reality rather than bitterly, or in ignorant blissfulness of fatalism driven
choices. This attitude that springs from comprehensive understanding of free
will is what is precious. This unique human attribute is what helped us to not
only negotiate, calculate but channelize with remarkable accuracy the laws of
nature into wonderful discoveries and inventions. This free will nurtured see
big data as no threat whatsoever.
