The Fog of Tech
The Only Certainty is Uncertainty
As I write from our home in Minnesota, we’re currently under a dense fog advisory. The fog has lasted for days. And even though I know meteorologists are referring to the potential pitfalls of its thickness, my 1980’s self wonders if they’re also warning us of this particular fog’s lack of intelligence (forty years later I still think “dense” is the pulled punch of insults.)
It’s the perfect metaphor for what we’ve learned in 2024. The fog of tech is like the fog of war, and the nature of both is unpredictabliity and uncertainty.
A British survey in 2018 asked 2,000 respondents which technologies in the 20th and 21st centuries have had negative effects on society. The most negative? The atomic bomb at 38.9%. A close second? Social media at 31.1%. Of course this was years before the artificial intelligence (AI) development race we’re currently seeing, but the parallel between what tech giants cook up and what Oppenheimer cooked up is striking.
Throwing itself into the debate about AI safety and innovation, the Biden Administration released a memo in October that further illustrates this fog of war/tech correlation in justifying the pace of AI innovation in the interest of national security:
Ceding the United States’ technological edge would not only greatly harm American national security, but it would also undermine United States foreign policy objectives and erode safety, human rights, and democratic norms worldwide.
In essence, if we’re not the first, then the bad guys win. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The same White House memo recognizes, “Predicting technological change with certainty is impossible.” The fog I see outside my window limits sight. The fog of tech limits foresight.
Mark Zuckerberg could not have predicted the worldwide influence of Facebook when he first created it in his dorm room twenty years ago. He couldn’t have foreseen the need to hire more than four Burmese-speaking moderators. At the time he couldn’t know Instagram’s impact on teens’ mental health. He couldn’t have imagined 2,000 people from Britain would view social media as negatively as the atomic bomb.
In 2025, tech companies will likely promote AI advancements and new social media features as never before. We’ll see more AI integration online, on our devices, and in our homes. Some of it will be disappointing like the truly dense AI chatbot helpers that are just glorified FAQ pages. Much of it will be promising with advances in mathematics and healthcare, but the uncertainties remain. What is real? What is true? How has social media shaped us? How will artificial intelligence change us? Are we sacrificing safety? How do we use technology responsibly? What is ethical AI? How does this affect the youngest generations? Are we on the brink of prosperity or disaster?
Whether the news is benign, magical, or terrifying, this publication is committed to approach 2025 with cautious optimism and healthy skepticism to shine a light through the fog of tech… to see behind the curtains. Because if we can’t count on certainty, maybe at least we can try to match tomorrow’s “clearing skies” forecast to bring a little clarity.
Postscript↓
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Thanks for reading… Happy New Year!!