Merriam Webster defines technology as the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area. Through the application of this ever-growing knowledge, we will soon have greater capabilities than we can even imagine, these capabilities being a double-edged sword. We will destroy ourselves unless we can get a grip on where we are, and where we are going.
Technology is evolving so fast that we will soon be unable to keep it contained. What once we thought impossible, will become the reality. In the last few centuries, the access to knowledge through technology has exponentially increased. All disciplines have produced new and important discoveries and the information is only coming faster and faster. Yet, while we are busy creating IoT, we are also becoming a world filled with nuclear arsenals, drone armies and cyber capabilities that will inevitably go into the wrong hands. It is only a matter of time.
The direct result of being bombarded by so much new information, or “technology,” is that we are not psychologically mature enough or capable of handling in the most responsible manner. We do not yet know quite how to apply this technology efficiently. Recent political and religious upheaval in this and other countries, people rallying in bigger and bigger numbers due to the power of the social media platforms, all of this has given us an eerie foreshadowing of what is yet to come if we cannot control or harness technology or its applications.
Collectively, we are gathering knowledge at an exponentially increasing rate. The aspects of technology, that allow us to be able to continually communicate information and distribute “knowledge”, has evolved, case in point #1, The hedge funds and Reddit’s Wall Street Bets a few years back. Archaic institutions are being challenged with the click of a mouse. The exponentially increasing organizational and distribution aspects of technology have evolved.
We are not, however, adapting to this new age, as fast as the technology itself is evolving. Given that we have misused and misapplied technology many times, it is going to be a difficult road; but it has to start somewhere.
Just when we think that we are beginning to become technologically advanced and overcome many obstacles and produce milestone advances and discoveries, many of the darker tunnels of technology have provided us with hacking, cyber warfare, ransomware and the black-market internet, or dark web.
This increased access to knowledge has also been proven to cause major mishandling of information, increasing theft of information and unintended loss of information, and the acceptance of misinformation. It can also be linked to technological overload. We have a situation where we are being bombarded with information faster than we can process it, let alone store it.
We are trying to catch a waterfall of information with a teacup!
It is imperative that we engineer better more efficient ways to access, distribute, secure, vet, classify, communicate and recall this aggregate knowledge. Only the dedication to collaborative and meaningful search for smarter and more efficient, secure measures to harness this explosion of knowledge will allow us to adapt to this new age. If we do nothing, we are destined to succumb to the unveiling.
We ourselves, humans, may most certainly get “lost in translation” if we are unable to adapt.
Fortunately, we are working on make computing more efficient, faster and less costly.
This could help us in the long term to engineer better mechanisms to access, distribute, secure, vet, classify, communicate and recall all of this aggregate knowledge, to be able to better more efficiently process all the new information and apply it in ways that will ensure adaptation!