Fear... of too much!

 

 

FEAR is such a negative emotion, but possibly the oldest and most heeded to. In adequate amounts, it can be a life saviour; a little more and it consumes life. The line is so fine, you barely know when you have tripped. But I know, I have not just tripped but fallen with a bang. I am scared. Too scared looking at the world around me. Everything about it is so smart but hardly safe! Shouldn’t I be fearful with drones killing, pagers exploding, gadgets consuming most of my hard-earned money, my smartphone ruling my life and ChatGPT doing my daughter’s homework! It seems in just a decade or two, my life turned upside down while I was enjoying the ride! A denizen of the smart world, I am no longer surrounded by friends who would ease my fears but with algorithms, who when I ask, “Is technology killing my world?,” send me tons and tons of data showing how, when and why! So recently when I went to my ‘go to entity when in doubt’ - the Google, to ease my fears, it did what it does best - dumped upon me volumes and volumes of unfiltered information.

 

 

As the scared woman in me had let her data-filled imagination run wild, I wanted to know if a rather primitive technology like a pager can be rigged to unleash mayhem, can our smartphones be hacked in similar fashion? It gave me an unfiltered ‘Yes,’ with another 5,000 words of how it’s possible, how it can be achieved, what can the hackers do, what measures can be taken to ensure safeguards and how these safeguards again be breached. Had Google been a gentleman, I would have reprimanded him (it), that this was no way to talk to a scared woman. But it being only a search engine, there was no point appealing to its better sense. Almost instantly, I realised that the one thing more expansive than technology was human imagination. (Mine, as you will see, is quite fertile.) I pictured a scenario when the phone in my hand exploded and I was running helter-skelter to seek help. Oh, but how can I? Usually when I need help, I grab my phone, feed a name and press the call button. But in the present scenario my very first step has been eliminated.

 

Soon enough, I realise that unlike olden days when my memory had in its store almost all of my relatives and friends’ phone numbers since there were no save buttons then, I only remember a couple of numbers – only a couple of them! what if I could not reach them? In the event, I choose to help myself into finding a hospital, it would be good if such an eventuality happened in my own city, for, without a GPS, how far can I reach anywhere else? Let’s assume that by God’s grace and kindness of people around, I do land in a hospital and they would want my ‘Aadhaar’, health insurance etc, etc, etc. – now that’s all in my mobile, which is gone! I wouldn’t even be able to pay them without access to my digital wallet! Scary isn’t it.

 

I know, I know, you think my imagination is a bit too far-fetched but aren’t we living in a world the abilities of which would have appeared, two decades ago, far-fetched? “Never summon a power, you cannot control,” remarks Yuval Noah Harari airing also the wisdom of so many others before him. But here we are, now talking all about Artificial Intelligence. You know when I am scared the most? When the supporters of greater stride in technologies like AI say it is irreversible and will bring unimaginable ease to human life if used wisely. So, you see the bet is on human wisdom! Who is going to take that? Wars after wars, destruction after destruction, and more and more war! While the world has grown more and more intelligent, does it appear equally wise? When the likes of Siris and Alexas arrived, I imagined myself having robots that would do all the work in my house while I sit reading books, watching television, brushing off the dust on my many, many hobbies and indulging in creative somethings. Instead, I see people around me relying more and more on artificial intelligence to do creative jobs while the menial ones are left for humans. Earlier, my daughter relied on me for all the information, solving problems, writing her essays etc, etc, etc. Now, while I run errands, her smartphone tells her what to do. She informs me that while she is a Gen Z or ‘Zoomers’ – the first generation to grow up with Internet and digital technology, I am Gen X – people who read newspapers and magazines and also watch television.

 

“So do you write us as Gen X, or write us off as ‘Gen-Ex?’” Though my sarcasm was not lost on her, her demarcations were completely lost on me. During my youth there were only generation grandma – meaning wisdom, and generation maa – meaning practical knowledge. And the normal rule was that you listen to both of them. It was not that you keep a picture of mom on your WhatsApp status with the caption ‘GOAT’ but practically ‘Ghost’ her! I have heard that generational changes have scared all generations, but this tsunami of change has been particularly reserved for my technology-infused times. All I can say is, tread cautiously. The greatest technological minds of our times are saying the same thing – tread cautiously. And though someone has declared that ‘Artificial intelligence is no match for human stupidity,” I say the former becomes all the more dangerous due to the latter. Now, now, I do not mean to scare you. I am only airing my sentiments to unburden myself. Fear, indeed, is a powerful feeling. To ease myself, I have asked Google what to do. It tells me that the age-old yogic practice of deep-breathing is most beneficial. “Oh! Pranaayam, of course.” I should have known but this constant company of this superimposed intelligence is making me so dumb, so forgetful! n