Cal Thomas: The Matrix at 20
Published: Tue,
August 7, 2018 12:00 AM
[Thinkstock
images]
Next
year marks the 20th anniversary of the sci-fi movie classic "The
Matrix," which depicts powerful machines attempting to subdue
the human race.
Sometimes
art imitates life, and sometimes it's the other way around. On
occasion, art can be prophetic. "The Matrix" is such a
film. It warns of a future in which the power and worth of the
individual is subsumed into one giant interconnected world run by a
tiny elite, who rob individuals of their liberty and ability to think
freely.
In
his new book, "World without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big
Tech" (Penguin Press), Franklin Foer, a national correspondent
for The Atlantic and former editor of The New Republic, expands on
the film's warnings. Foer asserts that technology is replacing
thought and relationships. He specifically warns of the goals of
Google, Facebook, Amazon and other corporate tech giants, charging
them with being "monopolists who want access to every facet of
our identities and influence over every corner of our
decision-making."
Sometimes
employing language that recalls ancient biblical prophecies and the
end times foreseen in Revelation, Foer warns these companies
eventually want to insert devices in our bodies to allow others to
think for us. "Google Glass and the Apple Watch," he says,
"prefigure the day when these companies implant their artificial
intelligence within our bodies."
How
will this be "sold" to the public? Foer writes it will be
sold just like any other product or service: "...they justify
monopoly with their well-articulated belief that competition
undermines our pursuit of the common good and ambitions."
There's
more, much more. "The tech companies are destroying something
precious, which is the possibility of contemplation. They have
created a world in which we are constantly watched and always
distracted. Through their accumulation of data they have constructed
a portrait of our minds, which they use to invisibly guide mass
behavior (and increasingly individual behavior), to further their
financial interests." This, he believes, is a threat to thought
and democracy.
Foer
says these tech giants have a vision that supersedes their financial
goals. That vision, he says, was hatched in the 1960s (though
conceived by the French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes
in the 17th century) and includes a world without borders. It is
their view that only they can save the world by concentrating all
power in a select few. They see themselves as saviors of the world.
In technology they — and we — must trust.
Students
of Scripture will immediately think of the "anti-Christ,"
who rises to power with the ability to perform miracles and who wins
the allegiance of the Earth's inhabitants; except he might not be a
person at all. "He" might be a machine.
In
his sobering prologue, Foer writes: "The time has arrived to
consider the consequences of these monopolies, to reassert our own
role in determining the human path. Once we cross certain thresholds
— once we transform the values of institutions, once we abandon
privacy — there's no turning back, no restoring our lost
individuality."
We
have been warned before and are now being warned again in Foer's
excellent book. The tech giants openly state their goals. How many
are listening?
In
the final scene of "The Matrix," Neo, the lead character
and redeemer figure, says: "I don't know the future. I didn't
come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell
you how it's going to begin. ... I'm going to show them ... a world
without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world
where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I
leave to you."
