Metaviews

In an attention economy, fame is simultaneously the currency and the destination.
Similarly in a neo-feudal society where celebrity is the aristocracy, fame becomes the only means by which someone can seek upward mobility.

Nuance is arguably lost amidst the madness induced by the pandemic and the political economic crisis that has followed. As a society we continue to be distracted by sensational narratives and irrational concerns, while at the same time, the increasing complexity of our society makes it hard for us to understand what is happening around us.

The toxicity of social media is certainly not new. Media in general tends to cultivate an ongoing lament that our culture and hence civilization is in decline, and that the proof and cause exist within some maligned and misunderstood newcomer.

While this pandemic has disrupted the otherwise unstoppable rise of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and the culture of data driven decision making, efforts to normalize and gloss over the governance issues of this technology has continued unabated.

As our Future Fibre series has progressed, so to has our understanding of what is possible and what ought to be. It’s not that the grass is greener elsewhere, but when you learn of the cheap, fast, and reliable Internet that other communities posses, envy is a reasonable response.

We live in a black box society where many of the decisions made about us are done by algorithms and machine learning models that are opaque, indecipherable, and unaccountable. This poses an existential threat to democracy, fairness, and arguably our ability to make a decent living.