effects of new technologies

Perhaps today we live in one of those periods, which, in the future, will be studied as a phase of transition breakdown. Over the last thirty or twenty years, many aspects of our daily lives have been affected by technology; That is, with the advent of the Internet. it’s been the internet One of the great technological revolutions in the history of mankind, With the Industrial Revolution, the invention of the printing press or writing.

Journalist ricardo de querol He recently published the essay La Gran Fragmentation in Arpa Publishing House, which analyzes the impact of the Internet on our lives. Through the different chapters, the journalist shows the dangers and advantages that social networks, artificial intelligence or robotization offer us. And it analyzes the current state of journalism or culture in this context of constant change.

Ricardo de Querol explains how Twitter or Facebook have been pivotal in the political polarization that Europe and the United States are experiencing, where populism and nationalism have worsened, and worryingly more often than not, coexistence and values ​​that were considered indisputable in western democracies. We are talking about xenophobic attitudes, gestures or speeches in public institutions that are so far unimaginable, violating the most elementary rules of social coexistence. lewd comments on social media Some social networks that benefit from these messages, because that way they get user interaction, from which they collect information and, in turn, invite them to spend more and more time on these platforms – thus more monopolize propaganda.

Trump or Bolsonaro, Pablo Iglesias or Meloni These are just some of the names that, as journalists point out, these new channels have taken advantage of to spread their discourse more widely. What it has meant, however, is the social and political decline of which we speak. But Ricardo de Querol is not limited to describing a pessimistic scenario. The author also points to the merits of a technology with which censorship is a less effective mechanism of repression.

Querol does not confine himself to describing a pessimistic scenario: he also points out the virtues.

The chapter that the journalist devoted to artificial intelligence is of particular interest – because it is such a current topic. A trendy tool now, but one that has been worked on for years and whose results are unpredictable, at least today. What is clear in the author’s analysis is that AI is the product of humans, and of the algorithms they create. So it is a limiting way for both creativity and knowledge. If a formula chooses who is the best candidate for the job, it will be because it has been manipulated before. That’s why the machine has no will of its own.

In the great fission, Ricardo de Querol exposes in a precise, documented and clear way the complexities of a reality-present world and its relationship with the Internet. To perceive everything around us, and thus draw our conclusions.