I, AI, Social Media

“Honestly speaking,
Social media is not that great tool!
It doesn’t have efficiency to summarize a human’s life or his/her personality.
However super computer they may put to use for it, and try to spy, it will not exactly analyse a human’s brain or his/her psyche.”

I uttered such, and deactivated one of my social media account, and I confess, it wasn’t the first time, nor the most several time! Social media successfully feds me up on occasions, much like once in a year, however our relationship is more like an on and off and on again girlfriend boyfriend. Recently during this great lockdown, social media was the only window to the real world for the general human kind. All of a sudden, Internet became an essential necessity for life’s sustenance; much like a brand new addition to the basic elements of life, such as air, water, light, and land. It can be considered golden time for social media.

Before this period, people used to support and believe the negative theories which were in favor of damaging the positive image of social media. Stories such as “…founders and managers of social media selling data of their users to gain profit…” this is just one of the theories among countless others. Now after this great lockdown the sky is changing, people still believe in these theories however, their support looks like to be evaporated. Prior the support was so intense that a number of them were inclined to protest against such works of social media owners, while that’s the change that has occurred, that people don’t want to protest against it. Now, social media to them is rather cherishing, most demanding, and an integral part of life. The shift is so dramatic it looks like a vamp turning her attitude for her own benefits. Their love for social media has blasted, social media is no longer a new technology which our kids should be taught to stay away from. It is not a taboo. The debate over negative and positive sides of social media seems to be faded. Social media has established itself as an element from which modern world cannot stay away or like should not and must not stay away. No wonder due to this lock down, we became a bit closer towards the future where AI would be the organizer and ruler of human lives. Our emotions and psyche has been intricately attached to social media that we feel empty if we stay away from it for longer time. The emotional and mental manipulation has changed our behavior and our vision for the world. Social media has become that stronger. It has laid a stronger and beautiful path for AI to come in our lives and rule. While receiving butterflies in our tummies of reconnecting with old buddies, we never knew we would be selling our souls to the AI. How convenient? India is a second largest population on this planet and after this lock down it seems social media has won the hearts of one sixth of world’s population. Quite a victory for AI in a long war, isn’t it?

“But!” because there is always a but involved! This above prediction does seem relevant and convincing, yes it does seem very much real; however there seems to be some incompletion in it. It just doesn’t add up! I do not consider myself that great expert on this subject, but it feels that this imagination is very much humanized, and not so natural. There are few missing parts in this puzzle. It seems very clear and very easy. I mean look at it, as a human we have not yet completely figured out how much of our brain we use, and how we use. The mystery of human existence is yet not solved. Today’s human can be considered rather a toddler in the story of evolution, and thus the imagination of it being ruled by an AI, seems to be a bit far-fetched. This reminds me of Stevie’s character from my favorite TV series, “Family Guy”. Stevie is a toddler who thinks beyond his age, at least that’s what it seems to his character. However at his age the fears and the threats seem to be accordingly, for example, for him stairs are a giant issue, he considers them as evil demon. Stairs are a huge, ginormous task for him, and however it’s not at all a deal for us as adults. Parallel to that doesn’t that look like the issues of AI and social media for us! They seem like a giant life threatening issue, but for the future advanced human race or present advanced alien species, it may not be any trouble at all; may be because they would have evolved out of it. They might have made a way to get pass the AI, or to live with it harmoniously. For them, we going all gaga over this issue would be a good laughing stock. We are fearing upon this issue of Social media and AI talking over as if human evolution is complete and we have no more cards to play. On the contrary we have just arrived at the door step of human evolution. It is just the introduction of AI! Social media has just drafted our basic information there is no chip in our brain yet! Look at it, we have started our journey of evolution and we have been introduced with Ai! Now it does seem like part of the plan! Our fear for Ai is due to us not being that evolved. Thus we find it evil and demon, just like Stevie! We resent AI, because we find ourselves lesser than it, on the contrary we should take it as a challenge to evolve ourselves out of it. We have a lot to learn and we have a long way to go in the story of evolution, and for the AI’s part, it harming us would be more like harming itself.

The way social media behaves today, is more like a parasite. It feasts upon the data provided by humans, us! Our greed to know all, be informed constantly, and appreciated as a celebrity is the basic condition for social media. Our greed and emotions are food for social media, it would not dilute that. Social media would not do anything to harm human psyche. The weirdness of our brain, the nature of human brain to bring newer and variety of greed, is the core which drives social media. In absence of such data, survival of social media would be in question. Thus social media creating any harm to us would be, again alike AI, harm to itself. The one who doesn’t have anything, who is zero or like an origin, is no use to social media; and the one who has everything, who is complete, also not useful to social media; but the incompleteness, the greed, the desire, are the fuel to social media. If we look at this issue from a prey and predator scenario, a content is useless to social media while an incontent is the most eligible prey for social media! AI would not to be that foolish to kill the hen for the greed of all the golden eggs. Considering how social media behaves today, AI would rather nurture the humanity, to slowly feast upon, isn’t it?

However I find myself not that sadist to consider AI that evil. Being a not so expert on AI I cannot tag AI being a complete evil or it being an extension of humankind. I would rather follow my gut, which has a feeling that Human race is a toddler, so is the AI. AI would need human as a base point to evolve itself at every stage of its existence. For instance, if human race is 0, AI can evolve 1.5 or 2.0, but in order to AI evolve to 10 it will need Humans at 8 or 8.5. Same as a child eventually takes over his/her parent in a natural order, AI would take over human race, in a more harmonious manner.