As we hurtle toward an uncertain future, soaked in deepfakes, cheap fakes, AI trickery, and all the modern technological manipulation you can eat, I wonder if there will be a renewed thirst for some sense of grounded authenticity.

If we are inundated with artificiality at every turn, will we grow weary of having to constantly decipher fact from fiction? Always wondering if someone was real or created. Never being entirely sure about who or what to trust. The tedium of that task would be torturous.

A grand puppeteer pulling the strings of the global perception of reality, making merry mischief with his marionette. 

It’s the stuff of sci-fi nightmares…and yet it is already so much closer and worse than we’d like to admit. 

The sad truth is that once the general public is first made aware of anything, that invention, innovation, or discovery is generally pretty far down the path. So any sense that AI is a “new” thing is somewhat laughable. If we know even basic, surface details about something, its development is already light years ahead of any bare-bones prototype currently making the beta rounds.

Once that horse has left the barn, it’s not circling back for another round of currying.

So, do we desperately try to pump the brakes on the inevitable digital transformation, or do we collectively decide that stripping everything down to its essential qualities and reclaiming the concept of humanity will yield a healthier and more manageable harvest?

It may not even be a choice we have much longer to make. But there is always strength in numbers…and the will of the group is a tough will to break.

Adolescence Interrupted