Article Title: Wake up, humanity! A hi-tech dystopian future is not inevitable

Article Summary

In this article, the author talks about the speed of technological progress and the need for putting it on pause. We live in a time when technological change is portrayed as an inexorable, impersonal force but as a society, we always have a choice about which direction we take next. And sometimes we make the wrong decision. The author says that history is full of technological marvels that were abandoned for reasons that were only reassessed much later. Just as we resurrect ideas from the past, we also have the power to bury ideas in the present – whether for business reasons or for the wider public good. Technology isn’t just something that happens to us; it’s something we can decide to build and to use, or not. Technology that can blur lines that separate fantasy from reality can have disastrous consequences and the wider result would be total corrosion of trust. The author thinks that it’s time to reject the wider myth that tech is apolitical. This idea that technological progress is smooth and inevitable these days may not be unrelated to the fact that the people who promote it are mainly the people with a large financial interest in the adoption of new technology. Our present future is not compulsory – technological progress is not compulsory. We can choose to call a halt.