Avatars and Algorithms

 I am growing impatient bowing my head in reverence to all things IT and ignoring what I sense is a decline - not in data, but in daring. Can any of you Geek Gods code daring?  We need some bold, courageous action.  This new tech renaissance/religion/revolution has become a slow read.  It’s routine.  We get it, we’re programmed (literally).  Our phones are appendages, and we all know we’re going to need a new one in less than two years.  We know to answer work emails on our personal time, which isn’t anymore.  We know to tweet and text and superficially engage.  Virtual shopping just makes sense, as do photos of our food and playing video games in virtual worlds. It has even been reported in a recent Precision Medicine Forum article that “Mark Zuckerberg already has an avatar of himself which is able to walk around his virtual home and make things happen in his physical home.”  That’s impressive, though not surprising.  Mark’s Ark also has a large leak which is a problem he needs to fix, but that’s another topic.

So, what’s my problem?  I don’t want an avatar!  As you know, an avatar is an icon or figure representing a particular person in a video game, Internet forum, etc.  Some refer to it as a personal icon.  I don’t need an avatar.  I have a cyberself, as I’ve mentioned before (Cyberself - No Syndrome), who has a mind and will of its own.  And as far as a representation of me, I would say it’s a free-spirited counterpart, maybe.  But even this is beside the point.

I am impatient with the lack of real adventure in the development of technology.  Why are we lollygagging around?  Let’s go ahead and make the polar shift happen.  Instead of moving to a new planet, as suggested by Stephen Hawking, let’s just turn the controls over to AI (Artificial Intelligence, aka, Almighty Internet), including our cyberselves.  We wouldn’t have to worry about gun control, too many items in a virtual shopping cart, Putin, NK, three hours of time wasted on useless YouTube videos, energy consumption, comments on articles no one is going to read, or global warming.  Everything would be calculated in algorithms that we cannot begin to imagine.  Think about it - a world of computed solutions.

It sounds daring and even daunting as all control would be relinquished to AI.  Although as I think about it, I sense there is something even more daring, more adventurous – true creativity, not complex calculations set for solutions. A creativity that reaches beyond the idea of solutions, sciences, and fine art – a creativity that wonders about the world and the self and what could be. The same creativity that gave birth to all things IT and AI. And know, there’s not a whiff of sacrilege here, just daring to consider imagination and inspiration – no confines, no coding, no avatars or algorithms.
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