Mehak Gupta Grover
Our world is transforming at a breakneck pace. What will our ethics be? Problems and potentials often go hand in hand; problems can be turned into opportunities. Every element of the universe exhibits two faces- one is constructive and other is destructive. Society has become more and more dependant on technology, so much that we sometimes lack the willingness to think before we act. Technology is taking away our humanity. Our ability to capture the moment with a mere swipe and a click is separating us from what really matters. How did we become so removed from compassion that we see no difference between filming our children taking their first steps and filming a man taking his own life? If we see someone in distress, needing urgent help, what would we do? Obviously, we will hold out our hand. Is it? Or we’ll start filming them with the phone that we are clutching?
Technology is making us so bust that we can’t even find time to spend with our closed ones. It won’t be surprising to know that people are in contact through chat and online messaging though they are in the same city because they think it’s more faster and effective but they are forgetting that meeting personally can never replace online chatting. We are now living in a brave new world of technology. But in this time of unprecedented scientific transformation, have we thoughtfully considered the moral and civil implications of what’s ahead? We are losing self- awareness and individual accountability leading to inhumane behaviour. Take the example of the ongoing Blue Whale game which is taking away the lives of children. Are we getting so blindfolded in this technological era that our brain has stopped beholding the essence of right and wrong. Everybody gets so much information all day long that we have started losing our common sence.
We complain about the colonisation of our wild places with WiFi, yet declare Internet access to be a human right. We despair about poaching while helping the culprits track down rare animals with our social media posts. No wonder, we are so conflicted. From cooking vessels to virtual reality headsets, technology is simply a set of strategies our species has developed in order to cope with being self- conscious creatures on a chaotic planet. Though, many of our digital inventions serve to estrange us from the world, they were created to enrich our lives.
In words of B.F. Skinner-
‘The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.’
A clash of man and machine is almost upon us. Computers have beaten humans at chess. Soon, they will be better at driving. Machines do not create jobs, they definitely eradicate the need for human effort. People make mistakes, machines do not. People get tired and cranky, machines do not. People are erratic and unreliable, machines are not. People have every definite limitation of concentration, machines do not. So, machines are also displacing people from workplace. Will we blindly outsource and abdicate big chunks of our lives to the global technology or will we take back our autonomy and demand a sustainable balance between technology and humanity?
Technology has brought harmful effects to society since it started manufacturing war equipments. America started the Manhattan project which was famous for producing it’s first atomic bomb, which killed almost 66,000 people in hiroshima. The economy of Japan deteriorated because the atomic bomb destroyed it’s infrastructure. Nazi scientist invented Rocket V-1, buzz bomb. Germans also manufactured V-2 missile. And the process is still continued. These are the effects of advancement in science and technology without using human brain efficiently.
Though, there are other projects like Fetch Climate which is a fast, free, cloud based service that allows experts to access accurate climate change. Another project Mataki that develops new devices for recording the behaviour of animals in the wildlife. Another important project is Google Person Finder which was created to reunite relatives during 2011’s Japanese tsunami and is still live. Technology has impacted most positively on nature in the past ten years. Technology can be our best friend and can also be the biggest spoilsport of our lives. It interrupts our own story because we are too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the mobile phones.
Thoughts by Albert Einstein- ” I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
There is much to celebrate in the ease with which we can connect and catalogue what is going on around us using technology. Technological development is similar to a double edged sword which on one hand can kill someone and on the other hand can lead to one’s own protection. Though, the decision to use it proficiently in proper perspective is one’s own decision and choice. The technology available to us has soared in recent years opening us up a world of opportunities and improving our lives tenfold. We now have access to machines and devices that can assist us in our everyday activities. If technological advancements are put in the best use, it further inspires the development in related and non- related areas but at the same time, it’s negative impact can create havoc in the humanity.
Technological advancements will continue to advance rapidly as we move into the next generation. What is important is to ensure that these advances benefit humanity as a whole. Science and technology can do wondrous things, but one thing they can’t do is to tell how they should be used. That is our responsibility as human beings. Without technology, humanity has no future. But we have to be careful that we don’t become so mechanised that we loose our human feelings.
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