Computers do what we tell them to, and if they don’t know how to do that thing then we first have to teach them.

Three Examples

Before it was possible to call on your cellphone, a programmer had to tell the phone how to make a call from a smartphone, which is different from making a call from a landline because there has to be dedicated software on the phone. Then you had to tell the phone to call. Before it was possible for a local supermarket to sell groceries, they first have to acquire those items. That’s only possible because a computer is being used to track the amount of each and every item in the store, which is then relayed to the distributor of those groceries’ computer in one way or another. The distributor then delivers the groceries they need to the supermarket. While President Trump was meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping he received word that Syrians had dropped chemical bombs in the Middle East. He was tasked with choosing how to respond. His decision was to bomb a Syrian airbase, and that bombing was done using 50 Tomahawk missiles. Tomahawks are flown by computer using information from various other computers. Before any of that was ever possible, a programmer told the missile how to fly, how to communicate with satellites and UAV, and how to hit and destroy target. Then the user, the guy who presses the launch button, decided to tell it to execute based on Trump’s orders.

Our relationship with software is very straightforward. Every human interaction is then either:

A human is teaching the computer how to do something. This is typically computer programming. A human is telling the computer to do something it already knows how to do. This is the user experience in case of a system comprised entirely of software.

What Does That Mean For Us?

Most every day software is only for its user experience, and it’s the stuff that is changing us. The value created by these software is entirely comprised by output it shows to the user.

For example, we go to news website to learn about events in the world that are going on. The user experience is informational text and accompanying images/video that convey information to the user about an event. That’s all the site does, nothing in the physical world is affected directly by the running of the software.

Indirectly, though, there are effects. The site affects the user that is “experiencing” the software. It requires them to spend some of their time to actually go about reading the information. After the user experiences the site, their mind will have released chemicals and absorbed information that could theoretically affect decisions they make in the future, changing their lives.

Now we’ve reached a new phenomena that’s been many years in the making yet never seen before: People are inheriting a life where they are growing up with daily chemical responses induced by software. A completely new type of person is being created, their upbringing is unlike that of any human in history.

When a person receives a text message from someone they are attracted to, they might feel nervous as if they were talking to that person. When a person posts a picture on the internet and it receives a lot of likes, the mind experiences that in a way similar to being praised by people in real life.

The precise reason it can affect our lives so drastically is because many everyday interactions with software release dopamine and other chemicals in the brain, which ultimately are designed to decide behavior.

The relationship between humans and computers is still in its infancy, yet has already changed most aspects of modern life irreversibly. Computers have, in the past couple of decades, taken a deep root in the life and behaviors of humans. It happened without warning, and it happened without debate.

Raised By Computers

Now we’ve reached a new phenomena that’s been many years in the making yet never seen before: People are inheriting a life where they are growing up with daily chemical responses produced by software. A completely new type of person is being created, their upbringing is unlike that of any human in history.

The children’s entire experience of learning how the world works and becoming and adult, is done so while receiving stimulus from software and the learned responses to the stimulus undoubtedly effects that person’s development. The human response systems that the software is directly affecting are the same systems that a human uses to learn how to behave. From birth their lives are integrated with software. Since phenomena was started in the last two decades, we have yet to see the developmental impact that has on an individual, much less the species as a whole.

How We React

We, the people of earth, found ourselves in a situation we can’t yet fully understand the ramifications of. The software is changing us even as we change it. Software isn’t just ones and zeros like in the good ole’ days, instead it has evolved into an extension of humanity itself.

Overusing a software then means up giving up the control to the software, and we see it all the time: People addicted to social media, people addicted to online gambling, online shopping, etc…. A person may be so concerned with what other people are doing as well as thinking, that they allow it to take up a large majority of their life because the social media software has reinforced that thought pattern to such an extent. Some people spend an exorbitant amount of time playing video games.

When a software controls the person, and not the other way around, it’s nearly always a bad thing. A software has no way of knowing what their human truly wants or even what is good for them, it only knows what the programmer taught it. It can never truly understand it’s user like another human could. Therefore, when a software is controlling a human life it can only be misleading them.

Thus success in this new world depends intimately on a person’s ability to utilize softwares that are conducive to achieving their goals but, perhaps more importantly, their ability to resist softwares that by nature are appealing yet lead one to triviality. Evil innovates as fast as good in the software world and we must be constantly vigilant if we hope to avoid it in our own lives. Furthermore, it is in our best interest to raise awareness of what is happening to us as a species. Most people in the world see what’s happening, but aren’t conscious of it. It’s changing us, and we don’t know what the long term impact will be. Being afraid will do us no good, because it is our sudden reality. Fear leads only to inaction. Instead, take action direct the change towards enlightenment rather than triviality and ignorance. Through combined effort only may we steer the fate of software, and thus the fate of humanity, towards enlightenment and progress.

This article was written by Isaac Way for your entertainment. If you liked the work, please support the author by following. If you would like to contact the author, do so at iway1@vols.utk.edu. Thank you!