2020 / TECHNOLOGY MONOPOLY
What does the future of technology look like? A question that is difficult for us to answer. We often assume that it is out of our hands, and that might be true for many of us when it comes to creating the technology. But we cannot forget that we are the ones it is being designed for and that we are the ones that should benefit from it.
This short film represents a speculative scenario in the near future of 2028.
Based on extensive research, it shows my perspective on the critical development of technological monopolies.
My starting point for this project is this question: How would our world look like, if not only all physical work, but also all intellectual work was executed by smart machines? We would basically only exist to enjoy the luxury of leisure time. The „goal“ of the working class since the industrial revolution. To me that sounds like a dystopian future. Self determination is at the top of Maslow`s pyramid of basic human needs. Work defines a crucial part of our existence.
What is interesting about this scenario is how we could end up there. The answer is: artificial intelligence (AI). AI has been in development since 1956 and has already become a daily part of our lives. Every time we are using the internet, an algorithm collects our data and adds it to a digital file. Individual profiles are then put into patterns and used to generate advertisement, identify potential criminals and even assist in job interviews. The next stage is slowly being implemented to make work more efficient and comfortable, but also execute tasks that we are not able to. We are moving towards an automatisation of everything.
If you take a look into the near future, intuitive artificial intelligence will be a million times more efficient, precise and smarter than us in every field you can imagine. The worrying part is that we do not know where a development, of something that we cannot even fully comprehend ourselves, will lead to.
We will continue to work on it, simply because of our hopes that it might solve problems that we were not able to. The other reason is human nature. In the past we have always faithfully enabled every technology, without thinking it through carefully and consider the potential consequences (e.g. fossil energy, atomic plants & even renewable energies). We always did everything possible to progress and develop, so stopping never was an option. This time though, we do not only have to fear negative environmental consequences, but nothing less than the unknown impacts of creating a new form of intelligent life.
The only thing left for us to influence is who is in control of that development and whom the technologies are going to benefit. Right now the big tech companies like Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Tesla have the exclusive right to how our digital future will look like.
They have built monopolies with so much power that even governments are using their services, for example the US military storing their data in Amazon`s Cloud. With endless financial resources, they started to invest in the most important aspects of life: Health, education, communication, currencies and transportation, and even the sky with SpaceX.
Private companies with absolutely no regulation of any authority, owning the entire future of technologies in every aspect of life. That should be alarming for everyone. It certainly is for me. Especially with the values the mentioned companies represent and their methods of progressing and expanding their empires. Examples in the past like Cambridge Analytica or the daily surveillance and storage of personal data for economic interests are very questionable uses of these technologies. Their only focus is maximising profit and remaining number one, buying or defeating all competition that could interfere. Google has an entire department responsible for developing persuasive techniques. Its only purpose is to design subconscious addictions to make sure users spend as much time as possible with their services.
The status quo might not worry us too much, even though we are accepting the loss of freedom and privacy step by step. But we have to look ahead. To co-shape our future, we have to use the only power left to tame their infinite power and use the technologies to our advantages.