The line between reality and the virtual world in its many manifestations on the internet has almost disappeared. An increasing number of people exist in a mishmash of the two – thinking what happens in the physical world can be rebooted much like the online world. And, with every new platform launched in competition with others, with the AI component becoming larger, the boundaries are being pushed to dangerous levels. Human control is disappearing. This is apparent from the recent incident of an AI controlled robot attacking people in Japan.
There is no doubt that YouTube is a great platform to acquire skills, but when a young man operates upon himself based on what he has learned there, questions arise about how the distinctions are to be made. There are no moral or rational checks and balances on social media content, and it is, therefore, no surprise that particularly impressionable youth act out in that imagined reality. How else are the numerous scenarios in which murders are taking place of people in relationships to be explained? In fact, police need to examine the content of people’s smartphones to learn how and why they did it. The parallel lives lived on these media devices are for many their actual reality.
The repeated appeals of governments around the world to those who run these platforms for strict management of content have not worked, because competition drives them to make it more addictive and accessible. The latest that has emerged is Elon Musk’s Grok, which has already sent shockwaves among users because of its lack of restraint. Under the new Trump regime in the US, freedom of speech is being used as an excuse to further unleash these demons. Unfortunately, the alternatives are the AI platforms run by totalitarian regimes like China and Russia. The average person is so overwhelmed by the material online that it is very easy to be fooled by the manufactured alternative realities.
At the present the best people can do is to, first, reduce online presence as much as possible and, second, to be involved in the real world of relationships, social activities, and offline interactions. The younger generation must train themselves to be on top of the new technology rather than be overwhelmed by it. Otherwise, the alternative will be a new form of slavery far greater to defeat than those of the past.
