Have we lost faith in technology?

Relationship status: Complicated.

When it comes to technology, we are more dependent and wary than ever before.

Society is becoming more connected, but also more lonely. Increased productivity, but also increased burnout. We have more privacy tools, but perhaps less privacy.

But on the other hand, technology-related scandals are dominating the headlines. News of data breaches, cyber-attacks, and horrific online abuses are regularly reported.

“Like everything, there's a dark side to technology. It's a double-edged sword,” says Professor Mike Malone, a veteran Silicon Valley watcher.

In other words, it's complicated.

I've been talking a lot lately about how people are losing faith in powerful technology tools (both hardware and software) because of things like this. Technological tools have dominated our lives and are causing great disruption.

Eileen Burbidge of investment fund Passion Capital insists it's business as usual.

“I think it's pretty cyclical,” she says. “We've been talking about this for years as it relates to data privacy, AI, robotics, privacy, social media, work, welfare, etc…”

While she may feel like a broken record, she also believes it's an important conversation to continue.

“This allows consumers and businesses to be more conscientious about what they adopt,” she added. “It also helps regulators think about where to focus their attention.”

Advertising industry veteran Sir Martin Sorrell was characteristically frank on this point. “Everyone uses technology. It would be wrong to say we are losing faith in technology,” he told me.

But he agrees that people are becoming increasingly fearful of the impact of rapidly advancing AI tools, especially when it comes to their impact on jobs (a recent report by the International Monetary Fund found that suggests that 40% of jobs will be affected by AI).

He gave me a harsh example from his world. “The time it took him to create an ad went from three weeks to three hours.”

And it's not just job losses that people fear when it comes to AI. There are legitimate concerns that in the future, powerful automated tools that make important decisions about us, perhaps in healthcare or judicial proceedings, will display unintentional discrimination and bias.

Additionally, there are dilemmas about the data on which these tools are trained and who that data belongs to, and, in the more extreme case, the existential threat of humanity's extinction due to out-of-control machines.

Paolo Pescatore is an analyst who closely monitors the technology sector. “Basically, if there's a problem, people should stop using it,” he says.

But he goes on to talk about the peer pressure to stay connected, from colleagues, friends, family and even governments who want to move to digital services.

And what about the technology sector itself? Major U.S. companies have laid off thousands of employees in recent months. Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla and X, is known for favoring a work culture and was one of the first to bring his staff back to the office after the pandemic.

Entrepreneur Thomas Hargas said the industry has become a more vulnerable place for employees. “Technology workers were very comfortable in our jobs before coronavirus,” he explains.

“People used to say, 'Google isn't a job, it's a retirement plan.' Those days are long gone.”

Mr. Hargas is a young tech boss with big ambitions. His first startup was Twitter, which he sold to his Successful procurement.

“Technology workers thought they were safe from automation. Now we are among the people who might be replaced,” he says. That is, he was replaced by his AI tool, which writes code like himself.

“Right now, many people are facing an existential crisis.”

Industry watchers like me have been seeing the arrival of AI for some time, but the dramatic impact of the launch of one product, ChatGPT, surprised everyone.

More than a year has passed since the book was released, and within a few months, he passed the bar exam for apprentice lawyers. Sam Altman, president of OpenAI, which created it, said advances seen in 2024 will make the current version “archaic.”

Is it time to slow things down a bit?

A recent survey by PR firm Edelman found that 52% of Brits (yes, that old ratio again) think innovation is developing too fast, and 70% believe that technology heads develop new technologies slowly. It was suggested that he thought it should be done.

Realistically, the chances of that happening are virtually zero. This is especially true with the money and power flowing into the AI ​​field.

However, Professor Malone argues that the explosion of public debate surrounding it is also healthy.

“We no longer just blindly accept new technology,” he says. “That's good.”