Too fast, too soon? The danger in putting all our futures in one virtual basket
In the span of just four decades our lives have become governed by the internet but have we gone too far too fast? Are we setting ourselves up for disaster by putting our collective future in one virtual basket?
Recent mass outages and the threat of cyber attacks affecting everything from airports to workplaces and even disrupting medical systems suggests that we are.
It's hard now to imagine our world without the internet and those of us born pre-1990s may be the only people to have ever walked this planet to have experienced life before and after its arrival.
As such we may also be the only people able to fully understand its impact and influence on just about every aspect of our lives.
From hospital equipment to online shopping, across industries and offices, education, research, entertainment, travel, communications - whether we like it or not, our world is now reliant on cyber-space. Try booking a holiday, a course or a concert these days without some sort of digital input or requirement. Chances are you won't be able to. And then there's the rapid advancement and adopted of Artificial Intelligence, the uncertainty around what is real from what is fake and the serious implications that come with AI for our safety and job security.
What happens when online systems malfunctions or goes awry? The short answer is chaos, as we have seen in recent times. And the more we rely on it, the higher the likelihood and frequency of things going wrong.
Maybe it's just human nature to fear change and to look to the past through rose-tinted glasses.
I am after all typing this on a computer using the internet to send via an online app to another computer at work, from which this will be uploaded and accessed on the vast virtual space I’m expressing doubts about. That irony is not lost on me.
And yet at the risk of sounding like a Luddite, I feel it is worth asking the question: Are we happier now than when we were then?