Data And AI: The New All Conquering Gods Of The Twenty-First Century.

We live in the world of algorithms and data. A world in which everything from finance to medical sciences is highly dependent on analysis generated by algorithms, so much so, we have come to trust the judgement of this unseen force without thinking too much about it.

When Angelina Jolie, the Hollywood actress took a genetic profiling test and found out that she carried a dangerous mutation of the BRCA1 gene, which gave her an eighty-seven per-cent likelihood of developing breast cancer, she made the all important decision of undergoing a double mastectomy.

This life changing decision by the world famous celebrity was driven by data. To question the information presented to her would be interpreted as being emotional.

Such is the extraordinary power of data and AI.

And it is precisely for this reason that data and artificial intelligence are seen as the new all conquering Gods of the twenty-first century, because it knows and understands us better than we know ourselves.

Unlike the God of Biblical times, whose whims and caprices were a mystery to humans, the God of our age resides not in the skies or in the heavens, but in the hands of the Tech giants, who hold all of our secrets, yearnings, desires and biases.

The Might of The New Gods In Revolutionizing Our Politics

Howard Dean was the very first politician to harness the power of the internet and social media during his campaign to be the Democratic nominee for President in 2004. Even though he fell short back then, it seemed that the genie was out of the bottle; no longer could any serious contender for high office overlook the emerging technology.

For all of the extraordinary successes that Barack Obama enjoyed in harnessing the power of data and tech, in his mold breaking 2008 campaign for President, there was the abiding impression that there was so much yet to come from this new way of doing things.

And this new way of doing things became apparent in 2016.

When David Cameron announced that he was calling a referendum on whether Britain should remain in Europe, no one could have foreseen the extent to which this campaign would be shaped by the new God of the twenty-first century -Data.

And it fell to these new gatekeepers to mine the cornucopia of data in its possession in ensuring that those whose world view was driven by a visceral hatred of the other, were sufficiently manipulated and gaslighted to vote to leave the European Union.

And for those of us who were taken aback by what took place on the 24th of June 2016 in Britain, we would be completely floored by the power and might of the new Gods, when the egregious, uncouth Republican candidate for President of the United States of America won a stunning victory against his female and better qualified opponent, who was by all accounts the favourite.

Only after witnessing a number of the greatest political shocks of our time, in 2016, did we begin to see the full extent of the capabilities of the new God in our lives.

With this in mind, I am impelled to pose the question below:

Could The New G od (Data/Artificial Intelligence) Destroy Humanity?

Nearly seven years ago, three young men from London flew to Los Angeles to strike a deal with Larry Page from google.

These young men had created a company called DeepMind. At the heart of their thinking was the root of intelligence. DeepMind had gone back to basic principles that humans and robots are both merely outer shells driven by decodable intelligence. Once you decode that intelligence, you understand how anything works and you rule the world.

According to Jacques Peretti, the author of Done, these three Londoners sold their company (DeepMind) for $650 million to google.

The strategic view from the owners of Google was that creating the world's great search engine was one thing and owning intelligence was another. If both of these are to be found in one organization, there would no obstacle to infinite wealth and monopoly. To the founders of DeepMind, they see their creation as a new organism, which they have called a ' cognitive machine tissue'; Neither living nor dead, but cognizant. A brand new species.

When asked what this brand new species meant, here's what he had to say:

Eventually I think human extinction will probably occur and technology will play a part in this. if a super-intelligent machine decided to get rid of us, I think that it would do so p retty efficiently.

To any sane human being, this should be a major point of concern and what's extraordinary here is that scant attention has been paid to the machinations of these new Gods and the Pandora's box which has been opened as a result.

In Britain, our lives are being shaped by the 21st century Gods in ways in which we are not fully aware of; The National Health Service, which is by far the greatest repository of data in the United Kingdom, have been in talks with foreign players to release reams of data, which would make it easier to exert much more of an influence in every aspect of our lives, in the coming months and years.

At the height of the pandemic in 2020, It wasn't the Royal Mail which was busy distributing the Covid test kits to people's homes, but It was a silicon valley behemoth - Amazon, which was responsible for delivering the means through which people ascertained whether they had the dreaded virus or not.

Anyone who has watched "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix will understand the degree to which our lives are molded by AI and Big Data.

Video courtesy of Netflix and YouTube

If these powers were being used to cure cancer and eradicate racism, then articles like mine would never see the light of day. But these new Gods are driven by exploiting profound human weaknesses, foibles, neuroses and peccadilloes for vast profits and an ever increasing market share.

Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and to a lesser degree Uber and Palantir have made the Biblical God on which we were raised and taught at Sunday school and elsewhere more impotent than a eunuch. Together these tech giants have contrived to remake the world in their image - a world that is fast unravelling right before our very eyes.

That we have all been willing partners in the gradual destruction of humanity is simply beyond tragic. We are complicit in the misuse of the power by the Gods of the new age.

Something has seriously got to give.

Thanks very much for reading.

Reference:

Done: The Secret Deals That Are Changing The World by Jacques Peretti

The Social Dilemma by Netflix

Wikipedia