What do Artificial Intelligense, Alexa, Siri, and many other devices of similar nature have in common? That these are going to add to our woes.
Let us see how. For the past many years we have been making it more and more convenient to do human chores, effectively eliminating much of manual work. And we landed with troubles too, one of which is obesity. Learning from its consequences, we continue to bring back manual work, of course in disguised form. Calling it planned physical exercises for the body.
Now, the above mentioned techniques and devices replace much of our mental labour. How are we going to compensate for the inactive brain? Is such an issue unlikely?
I think we are already experiencing this. Nowadays, popularity of the irrational is at an all time high. Take a few recent examples.
One, the vehement opposition to the theory of evolution, simply on the grounds that the social status of one of the important elements of the theory, say, is not aristocratic enough. That our dear parents could not have been from a society of monkeys.
Two, interested groups can dictate what should be the content of artistic creations. And people taking it. We know that these essentially are the products of imagination. Are we planning to put a limit there?
Of course people are reacting to this. But only restricted to each specific case, where we get enamoured by the sheer magnitude of the irrational in it, and miss the whole picture.
What do the whole picture show? That these are not isolated issues. I think it points to mental obesity.
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