PREPARE FOR REVOLUTION IN 2018

IT seems even the terraforming futurists of Silicon Valley are finding it difficult to break free from humanity’s more contemptible base tendencies.

As Big Tech’s elite ushered in the New Year with a series of lavishly-funded private soirees, perhaps some of the more socially-aware revellers whispered in hushed corners that 2017 was something of an annus horribilis. This was a year their industry stood accused of institutionalised sexism and misogyny, of ripping apart the planet’s social fabric, destroying the minds of a generation and breaking the chains of morality to fly free in untethered pursuit of obscene profit.

Still, money talks and it meant Big Tech remained the loudest voice in the financial world. Each one of the big five – Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon – boasted a substantial rise in share prices. It seems the dotcom kids who aimed to free humanity from its capitalist shackles and create a liberally-minded socialist utopia have simply taken the reins from their corporate forefathers and whipped the horses harder.

With the moral compass of Big Tech under deep suspicion as we kick off 2018, here are four somewhat pessimistic predictions on how the driverless juggernaut of progress may soon revolutionise the way we live, work, feel and think …

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MONEY BECOMES MEANINGLESS

PINK Floyd branded money a “gas” in 1973, confusing scientists unfamiliar with groovy slang. Yet in 2018, it seems gas has more of a solid, tangible state than some currencies. Just as world markets are built upon collective faith in another country’s ClearScore rating, new digital “cryptocurrencies” – there’s now 1,300 and rising – are gaining credibility through a similar collective assumption in their worth. Yet, there is no gold reserve to back up and secure digital cash, just mass worship of the “brand”. It’s a grand madness with investors chasing will-o’-the-wisp and grasping at rainbows.

Last year belonged to Bitcoin, but young shavers Ripple and Stellar are currently hot on its heels, with both gaining wild traction this week. It seems this might be the year cryptocurrencies shake the foundations of the established world order – soulless Frankenstein’s monsters intent on destroying the financial system that birthed them, their very existence and abundance rendering established currencies redundant.

What’s even more bizarre is that many shrewd digital evangelists – inspired equally by Mark Zuckerberg and Del Boy – are presently going cap in hand to venture capitalists, claiming to have created their own digital currencies. And they are actually finding willing investors.

The fundamental illusion and artifice of cryptocurrency is perhaps symbolic of free market capitalism itself – with power and wealth ultimately revealed as mirages as we reach the finishing line of our egocentric sprints of existance.

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THE EMPIRES STRIKE BACK

THERE was undoubtedly a great disturbance in the force last year, a tangible disillusionment with the power of instant communication, digital technology and social media. This mainly focused upon the adverse societal consequences of information technology, from future job losses to the manipulation of public opinion. The latter boasting heinous real-world consequences where a tantrum-prone, attention-seeking Twitter addict became President of the USA. Such events have been accompanied by a dramatic drop in public favour for California’s Silicon Valley, long considered the global epicentre of innovation and global economic growth.

Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan perhaps encapsulated growing concern at the tech elite’s perceived moral vacuum by referring to its CEOs as “America’s real overlords”, damning them as “moral Martians who operate on some weird new postmodern ethical wavelength”. This year will undoubtedly see an abundance of PR paint jobs by Big Tech, with some form of internal moral policing suggested by a smiley collective of top firms. They will claim such a panel will be fully independent of Silicon Valley, and will aim to spark an honest discourse on regulation and monitoring of certain technology advances. We will be subjected to navel-gazing regrets from tech company founders about the addictive qualities of their creations. Don’t be fooled, however. These crocodile tears are a smokescreen to avoid the real debate on full transparency – one we should demand – regarding seismic advances in technology which will greatly affect all our lives.

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THE DEATH OF OBJECTIVE TRUTH

IN 2018, it’s possible our thoughts will be a waste product like any other excretion, the half-digested echoes of nutrition-free unsolicited opinion, lies and spin. Look around. Traditional mainstream media companies spew out cheap clickbait in a bewildered death rattle reflex. State-sponsored viral campaigning influences everything from the Scottish independence referendum to the planetary apocalypse of a Trump presidency. Algorithmic mobile surveillance accurately predicts the colour, texture and taste of your bellybutton fluff. And automatically orders more when you scoop it out. The future arrived while our attentions were diverted by great TV shows, birthing a topsy-turvy new paradigm where “truth” is the pot of gold buried at the end of a cloud of static.

So, apart from the Sunday Herald, where do we find the purveyors of veritas in this new era? Perhaps not in the American “mainstream media”. Earlier this year, The Washington Post staked its claim on righteousness, adding a startling “Democracy dies in darkness” motto underneath its masthead. The message was clear but the irony of the paper’s owner being Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P Bezos is hopefully not lost on the organ’s readers. Let’s hope Bezos was sincere when he said: “I think a lot of us believe that democracy dies in darkness, that certain institutions have a very important role in making sure that there is light.”

This year, that light will dim even further when the informational terrain of the internet becomes even stranger – with brain-mimicking AI neural networks sparking a new acceleration in machine learning. On a micro scale, this bespoke AI will be capable of casually generating fake visuals and audio to put words in the mouths of public figures – and you too, if you’re targeted. On a macro scale, the war on truth will become a massacre of willing cannon fodder, trapping us all within ego-gratifying online reality bubbles. Some of these enslaving tech platforms will be brought to you by Amazon. Darkness indeed, Mr Bezos.

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FAREWELL TO MOBILE PHONES

YOU may recall the mundanity of rewinding those unwieldy VHS videos back to the start before returning them to the rental shop. Sometimes your player would viciously chew the tape and you’d have to spin it back manually with a bleeding, twisted thumb. One thing was clear – we all instinctively knew videotape was at the end of an evolutionary line, and that something new must arrive. So don’t think for a second that tech giants Apple, Samsung and Sony haven’t been listening to global grumbling about fragile touchscreen phones being nearly a decade old. The truth is they’ve already replaced your humble rectangular communication device in their research and development labs. And after Google’s spectacular stumble with its unwieldy, stalker’s dream “glass” eyewear, the other titans of tech will not be taking any chances when they eventually unveil the future – which is, by the way, augmented reality headsets.

These are a second skin for the eyes, a wizard’s hat of sorts, aiming to revolutionise the way we see the world by bringing all inanimate surroundings to life. While virtual reality immerses but isolates, augmented reality overlays images and data onto the real one. AR’s possibilities are endless, from the advertisers’ dream of plastering the city street you’re walking down with every offer, menu and discount imaginable. Even the sky above you will be chopped up and slices sold to the highest bidder in this vampiric new visual dawn. On the plus side, AR will also allow surgeons instant access to state-of-the-art medical techniques, streaming instructions on how to stick a mouse’s ear onto your back or whatever.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has said he considers AR as revolutionary as the smartphone. “We’re already doing things that will transform the way you work, play, connect and learn,” he recently hinted. “AR is going to change technology forever.” Chief design officer Jony Ive added: “There are certain ideas that we have and we are waiting for the technology to catch up with the idea.”

Could 2018 be the year? For the health of our Bitcoin-filled digital wallets, let’s hope not.