On New Media Technologies and
the Fate of the Unconnected
By Samuel Zalanga
Wednesday, October 28, 2015.
For those interested in the vision of a group of
people who are technology experts but operating within the context of
"free market capitalism," this article from Vanity Fair, will
be of great relevance and interest. The article is very insightful about the
competing visions of the world between what humanistic and religious people
represent, and what the movers and shakers of our society, or as they sometimes
call them, "Masters of the Universe" envision for humanity.
From humanistic and religious perspectives, it is
amazing that some people accept being called "Masters of the
Universe." Part of the article summarizes the vision of people
(proponents of singularity vision), who think one of the greatest obstacles to
a better future is "humanism." Why? They thought so because they
believe people who see humans as unique and distinctive beings tend to restrict
some kinds of technological innovation because of its negative impact on
humanity.
The opposing groups who are working in the technology-driven
industry but who are more careful and cautious about the consequences of
technological innovation for humanity and human society. As someone broadly
interested in the consequences of modernity for humanity, technological
innovation and the kind of utopia it promises humanity right from the era of
the industrial revolution is one area of my scholarly interest. For
instance, I have been tracking the work of "Brynjolfsson and McFee at the
MIT School of Business. One of their books is "Race Against the
Machine" and another is "The Second Machine Age."
Most of the people who are promoting the
propagation of the idea of technological utopia are as evangelical as religious
entrepreneurs in their mission. Indeed, their belief system is almost like a
religion. It also has a kind of eschatological vision of human progress, but
very naive about the complexity of human society given much that have been
written about this in humanities and the social sciences in the history of
Western civilization.
Whether we like it or not, unless society takes
public interest in what those committed to technological utopianism are doing,
in the future, many people will become unemployed, to be blunt about it. The
interesting thing, however, is that, they sugar-coat this definite reality in
the future that is meant to benefit a few at the expense of the many. This is
not being a Luddite. It is an evidenced-based position. While technological
innovation promises a future economic Nirvana for everyone, it is actually - when
properly understood - a project of a small economic elite that gives ordinary
people a dog biscuit while they take away the real flesh.
We know for instance that we have the technological
capacity in the U.S. but many people in rural parts of the country are still
using dial-up to access the internet. In many parts of Africa, internet access
is not available and that widens inequality since there is a lot of knowledge
that one can acquire on his or her own freely on the internet if it is
available efficiently and at an affordable rate. This is where the market
intervenes but technology experts care less to factor it in. They do not start
with the philosophical question of what is the good society or what kind of
society do we want and then use technology to achieve it. Rather, the possibilities
through technological innovation and the money to be made are the forces
driving their vision of the future. Are rural Americans and Africans or
any rural groups in any country for that matter not humans? The technology is
available but because access to the technology is driven by market rationality,
rural people and many urban poor cannot get the best internet service. And even
in the city, it depends on your zip code. We know that if it is strictly based
on market rationality, many communities will lose U.S. post office mail
delivery because it is not cost effective for the post office to deliver mails
to them because of their location. They can only continue to get services from
the post office as a matter of societal commitment to social service. In
effect, the market is good in rationing and if you can afford a service by
virtue of your income or location, then Hallelujah! Otherwise, sorry!
Where do we go from here given the increasing
process of rationalization? I am not a person of Western ancestry but I am
amaze at how some in the West fail to appreciate that the challenges we face
ahead as part of the continuing unfolding of the secular religion of modernity
defies the simplistic liberal - conservative divide when properly understood. I
am not being cynical but looking at the logic of the forces driving the system.
I do not trust the people in Washington or World Trade Organization
claiming that they truly know where they are taking us in the next ten or
fifteen years. This is scary.
Unfortunately those religious leaders who claim to be
moral authority seem not to be directly confronting this challenge even though
it is competing against their own vision. Except for the intervening voice of
Pope Francis, many religious institutions of learning rarely expose future
religious leaders to the work of these "Masters of the Universe."
Looking at the evidence and data, I do not feel impressed by those religious
leaders - whether here in the U.S. or in Africa - promising the transformation
of the world and just building more religious places of worship, while ignoring
the powerful forces driving change in the world, in many cases filthy lucre.
But I am not alone in having this evidenced-based skepticism.
With particular reference to the U.S. for instance,
in their book of honest reflection and lamentation entitled: Blinded by
Might: Can the Religious Right Save America? (Grand Rapids : Zondervan
Publishing House, 1999), Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson raised the same kind of
concern as they asserted: "even a casual observation of the current
moral climate suggests that despite all the time, money, and energy -- despite
the political power --- we failed." (cited in p.130 in Christian
Perspectives on Politics by J. Philip Wogaman. Both were active in the
Moral Majority movement. Thomas and Dobson are not against the idea of
their religion or faith transforming the world, but they are confessing the
complexity of the reality out there that many people in their religious
tradition take for granted. Religious organizations and the general public need
to understand the forces that modernity broadly conceptualized is unleashing on
humanity.
The forces cannot be contained by just continuously
declaring eloquent propositional truths in religious enclaves or scholarly
traditions. The battle is out there in the trenches and the people there seem
not to care about what we say as the Vanity Fair article below indicates.
Indeed, as time goes on, the forces are prepared to invade us in our enclaves.
Their desire is to bring all humanity and human endeavor under the logic and
vision of the world as conceptualized by "Masters of the Universe."
This is a huge moral and ethical question and do not expect a miracle will
solve it. Only committed social action can do that. But are we even prepared to
work together? That is another empirical question.
Here is the link to the article:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/11/artificial-intelligence-singularity-theory
Samuel Zalanga is a professor of Sociology at Bethel University,
Minnesota, and Associate Editor for Africa, Journal of Third World Studies. He
is also a Carnegie Fellow.