When the time comes and the last human finds him or her (or themself) kneeling alone in rags in the blazing ruins of the world, I hope he or she (or they) yells out as defiantly and loudly as possible: “I blame all those people who were never satisfied with technology being boring.”
Me, I have no problem with technology being boring. The more boring the better. I just want it to do what I need, whether that’s play some music, take a picture, show a video, write some text, make a video call or even help me to add things up. I’m content with that. I mean, to be honest, who wouldn’t be? What more do you need from it?
The great thing about technology being boring is that it means there would be fewer things that could go wrong with it. Because let’s face it, one of the main things that makes technology interesting, exciting even, is the fact that things can go wrong. Try to remember back to the time before viruses, hackers, malware, phishing and ransomware were an everyday fact – and peril – of life. I bet you can’t. You know why? Because it was boring.
Imagine if IT was boring again. ‘Make IT Boring Again’ has a ring to it, doesn’t it? Count me in. I’m proud to be MITBA. If IT was boring again that would mean there were no headlines about security breaches or cyber attacks because, not to put too fine a point on it, those are generally the only times IT stories break through into the mainstream. Although, come to think of it, even security stories are getting boring now. People are becoming blasé, apathetic even to the very real danger of a cyber attack.
You can understand why though when so much of what they see, hear and read about technology is concentrated on security and the bad things that can happen to them through their PCs, laptops and smartphones. People get weary of it all. Bored even.
No news is the best news
The ‘good’ news is there’s something else to worry about now and it’s even bigger than cybersecurity: it’s a question of our continued future existence, or potential extinction. Artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to generate lurid and quite terrifying headlines. At the less gloomy end of the spectrum is the potential loss of 300 million jobs to AI. I appreciate that sounds bad but unemployment is a lot less perilous a prospect than extinction.
Everyday, there are more revelations from people in the know (and many who aren’t) that AI has got out of hand, is advancing far faster than predicted and that the people who are supposed to be developing it are losing control of how it is evolving (assuming they even cared in the first place).
On the face of it, you would think it shouldn’t be too harmful. After all, the stereotypical nerdy people you’d imagine would be working in technology and AI wouldn’t be the sort of people you’d assume would be capable of wiping out the human race. But you’d be surprised.
See, they were clearly excited about AI and the possibilities it presented – and who can blame them – but they weren’t very interested in all that boring regulatory stuff about what AI should be allowed and not allowed to do. They just wanted to concentrate on all the cool bits. They didn’t want to be bored.
Not to be a killjoy or anything but I can’t help feeling there’s a correlation between only wanting to do the fun stuff and not bother too much about the boring rules and regulations and the recent headlines screaming about the dangers AI presents to us all if it is allowed to continue. And that’s the optimistic view. There are a few people warning it’s already too late.
Still, if they’re right, at least it won’t be boring. More’s the pity.
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