José María Lassalle said in a debate at the Ateneo de Madrid that "networks are a symptom, although we don't really know what." I think that this intelligent imprecision allows us to understand the complexity of the moment we are living in, where technology invades everything and transforms everything, but it does not give us clues to know where we are going as a civilization. We don't even know if we're going anywhere.
Social networks may be the symptom of a society where everyone feels empowered, even if they have nothing to say. We are running out of intellectuals to help us think about the world, in exchange for exponentially increasing the number of memos that accumulate occurrences. In addition, the journalist Marta Peirano and the essayist Remedios Zafra, both researchers of the network phenomenon, intervened in the Ateneo debate. But they did not agree on whether it is a new disruptive power or if we are facing new forms of the same power as always.
Or aren't their owners part of the US economic elites who have tried for the last century to control not only money but also speech? But, on top of that, they have become more powerful, since they know everything about us and can tilt our vote. Lassalle wrote in one of his books that the Watergate case, which ended President Nixon's career, might not have occurred with the emotional firewalls that networks are capable of deploying.
ChatGPT is the latest tool, which can be useful in fields such as science or health, but which we are introducing into our lives with a certain frivolity, to the point that it is taking over the conversation. "He is so skilled when it comes to having a conversation with you, that you almost like him better than your boyfriend: he is always attentive to what you say," Peirano ironized.
But beyond the joke, the truth is that technology is no longer only intended to sell products or ideologies, but also to replace us. Hopefully one day we won't repeat Leonardo DiCaprio's line at the end of Don't Look Up, before the planet blew up: "Actually, if you think about it, we had it all."
