Life takes place in both the real and digital worlds, where the boundaries are blurred,
imprecise, ambiguous, and ever-changing—contentious and fought over.
Digitalization has exerted a positive influence on every corner of the world. Its march
across continents has enabled economic development, raised living standards,
provided access to education, stimulated creativity, and fostered greater
interpersonal connectivity. History will remember this era as the digital revolution.
The trade-off is that we engage with the digital world both as participants and as
products. We are shaped by both nature and nurture—our environment and our
experiences. Pervasive algorithms push content that molds us, and, unfettered, we
become what we consume. The incentive for technology firms is unashamedly profit
and shareholder value. The avaricious algorithms assault us constantly—it’s a shark
attack.
The year 2025 begins with a bipartisan congressional act outlawing TikTok in the
USA as a threat to national security—a battleground in the war between digital
freedom and public safety. Amnesty International warns that the platform’s algorithms
may push young users toward content harmful to their mental health. EU regulators
are investigating Google and Meta for secretly, and contrary to their public
pronouncements, targeting advertising campaigns at 13-year-olds, while Australia
has passed a social media ban for children under 16. New AI technologies are being
developed and proliferating faster than governments can frame rules to prevent their
malicious use. The fight to protect public interest is lost to the speed of technological
obsolescence; regulators and industry appear to be jousting with inflatable lances in
a bouncy castle.
It feels as though I am surfing the web—clinging to my board, immersed in a vast and
powerful ocean. Instantly shanghaied by an algorithm-powered riptide, my person is
seized; resistance is futile, survival becomes the journey. In deeper waters, the
current weakens. Exhausted and trembling, I try to kick out and return to shore.
Marooned offline, I awaken with my head in the sand at the water’s edge, damp and
cold. Afar, I see palm trees, but my eyes return to the ocean. I see its power. I know
its dangers, but I am an addict—I need my hormonal fix. I need to be in contact with
my online tribe. If I am not online, am I relevant? I know the hazards, yet I will return
to the waters.
But my online experience is not the only concern; the digital world, its data, and its
information are valuable strategic assets, and the digital arms race has already
begun. Personal data, captured surreptitiously, will enable AI models, applying
Bayesian probability models, to decide who the enemies of the state are. A margin of
error will be tolerated. Technical imperfections will be permitted for the greater cause.
It is already possible for an AI model to schedule sorties of bomb-laden drones
without any human oversight. Media outlets and propaganda have always been
powerful tools to cultivate supporters and diminish opponents. Radio was a tool ofwar, calling for reprisal killings in Rwanda. Social media is being weaponized.
Propaganda and disinformation bubbles are being widely sown.
As I stand on the shoreline, aware that I will re-enter the pernicious online ocean, a
palm tree offers shade. The beach is flecked with colorful sea glass—perhaps the
debris of buccaneering pirates from yesteryear. Only online can I be the Instagram
version of myself, sparkling amidst a glittering trove of sun, stone, shadow, sand, and
sea—the product of eons. Alas, there is no such paradise in the digital world. It will
be quite some time before we can paddle the web in safety.