Blending realities: keeping the human core in the digital age
Being online is inevitable. Some say soon artificial intelligence will probably be able to control human lives more than ever before. Others believe we are decades away from that evolution. We must keep ourselves sane and maintain human autonomy in the digital age.
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One thing I found important is to be conscious whenever we use online platforms. The tools we use are made by people who want something — whether they want us to be dependent or engage with others in specific ways. They are programmed by people and companies with particular agendas in mind. They encourage certain behaviours and discourage other kinds and were created before we decided to use them. To be aware of what kind of tools we use is vital.
How might we keep our sovereignty and avoid becoming digital “slaves”?
As a designer, observing trends or examining things unique to the time we live in is my default stage. It’s interesting to me to think about the dominant culture shifts that are changing the way we live daily. AI gives us the vision of having more control over our agendas, yet if we use it in the way big enterprises intend, we can end up losing our free will.
We need to remind ourselves those encouraging behaviours in the online tools are data-rich from our interactions, such as our consumer behaviour and lifestyle, as well as interests, which can be monetized as categories that matter to them.
The sorts of behaviours that push us offline or encourage us to keep certain things about ourselves private or limited to our intimate friends — will be discouraged because they don’t fit the business plan of the platform. To be mindful about it helps us shape our user interactions, protect ourselves against harmful scenarios, and prevail the behaviours aligned to our life values.
It’s about reflecting on which behaviours we want to expand in our reality beyond the physical and what positive impact allows us to interact online. When a company has control over collecting data, we, as users, need to have the power to influence according to our users’ rights and not be instigated by interactions that create toxic behaviours in society.
“We overestimate the impact of technology in the short-term and underestimate the effect in the long run.”- Roy Amara
The old quote help us to reflect we need to think about the possible future critically. Our experience of space is a hybrid reality of virtual and physical. It raises challenges and opportunities, bringing specific points of view of online culture into the physical world.
Imagining future scenarios we better understand and consider the positive impact on the world around us. As users, it forces us to examine the value if the solution comes first before the technology, and not the other way around.
Our relationship with online platforms is not about screens. It’s about communication and ethics. It’s a mountain to climb, but we can create a more human and desirable vision that doesn’t fade away from the downside of AI.
Some people and organizations working in the industry want to create better futures. If we all give it a chance, we can reverse behaviours that some enterprises instigate, have more mindful interactions with those online platforms, and give preference to the emerging ones with a more ethical approach. In that way, we can support our sovereignty in the digital age.
