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The theory of complexity, one might say, is a difficult subject. First of all, because complexity exists much more in practice than in theory. Secondly, because it implies an open way of thinking, far from trivializations, oriented to look at the long term and the depth of phenomena, beyond linear appearances and within the less obvious co-evolutions.
Discussion on the Digital Photo Concept
An example? Consider a seemingly simple question: does the multiplication of photographs made possible by digital technology have positive or negative consequences? Kate Eichhorn talks about introducing her beautiful book: “The end of forgetting. Growing up with social media “(Harvard University Press, 2019). The possibility of photographing children and young people without limits, of sharing photos online, of connecting people at a distance thanks to the digital images of family and friends was a wonderful enrichment of society. But he also built a cage of memories that never disappear and to some extent question the passage of time: “Can one ever overcome childhood if its image persists regardless of the will of the photographed subjects?” Asks Eichhorn.
As seen in the decades-long narrative of the development of the internet, an ecosystem technology cannot be understood without an awareness of complexity. But trivialization is too strong a temptation. And this explains why in the analysis of the digital network the misunderstandings have surpassed the substantive and solidly convincing knowledge for all.
The misunderstandings logically have nested above all in extremist cultures: the conventional trivialization of the many who have said that the internet “changes everything” and the skeptical obstructionism of those who have seen in technology more the negative consequences on the existing than the positive opportunities on the design of the future. But even for those who cultivate less extreme attitudes, the complexity hides indirect consequences that emerge to the conscience later than the facts.
The photographs, in fact, many are starting to print and keep in paper albums in order to enjoy them consciously over time, have now entered a new context. They have become data that feed an economy totally separate from the human relations implied by those images, which is based on the development of technology such as artificial intelligence. Which in turn is not understood without a serenely conscious approach to complexity. Chiara Sottocorona talks about it in a book entitled “AI Challenge. Friend or enemy?
How Artificial Intelligence Changes our Life?
Sottocorona has done research and journalism on digital technology since the beginning of the Internet explosion and has never stopped studying: this makes it an authentic and not a one-sided voice.
His reconstruction of the story of artificial intelligence leads the reader through his immediate dynamics, to arrive at asking the most humanly relevant questions, from human rights to economic and cognitive polarization. If the news is mainly American and Asian, the prospect could be predominantly European. As long as those humanly relevant questions are given the importance they deserve.