Let me elaborate on this, maybe you have an idea as to what I'm getting at. It just occurred to me while sitting and reading a this guide on how to use tipU and I thought back to how I had recently sat there, and worked on a post a little while back. And like some posts do, they can take time to create. I mean, we all know exactly what I am talking about. At least those who actually... take the time to make something original or authentic. So all of us, sitting here, all of us churning out new content by the hour. Information. And of course the rate at which this information is being generated by us increasing exponentially. Take for example the number of photos that have been taken. In recent years we have had more access to cheaper cameras in a variety of devices and consequentially are taking more photographs than ever before. These photographs consisting of information as well can be used by computers running machine learning software to be able to perform specific tasks, one obvious example in this case is facial recognition, Facebook having already implemented this long ago. I'm sure I'm not the only one that raises an eyebrow when facebook correctly identifies tags of my friends or me 'automatically.' Well the software has been 'taught' what I look like thanks to all that handy tagging!
So at this point in the dialogue I must anticlimatically mention the title of this post - The Machine is us/ing us. isn't mine, I didn't come up with this title(as genius as it is, and I wish I had thought of it.) Nor even the entire concept of this article is 'truly' original I could say. But having watched the The Machine is us/ing us years ago, I understood on some level about this whole idea for a few years now. That simple video from 2007, seems to have become only more relevant and a must-see today. However, one can easily understand a concept and at a later date in time understand a different part of it. Or understand in a different way or to a greater degree. My experience of investing my time into creating content - and realizing there are indeed hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of people sitting there as well, each investing their own time time into providing information. It's interesting that the pinnacle of human evolution has left us as basically, in essence, training a giant computer program. Yes, we do it because we love to create, because we have the opportunity to make tangible, real-world, interactions, validations, friendships and on here being compensated monetarily. All the amazing things that the internet empowers us to do. But at the same time - the machine which is simultaneously us and using us... it has become something more than just a machine. It has become a quasi-living entity, responding to us. And really, this is just only the beginning. I'm not necessarily saying this is a good or bad thing. Just something very curious. However it's no big surprise that this culmination in our evolution is ultimately having to deal with information. Because Quantum Physics is showing us that at a fundamental level, information, not matter, is what really composes our reality.
The Machine is Us/Ing us onYouTube
Roger Waters - Who Needs Information? on YouTube