Technological advances, despite some resistance on the part of some when it comes to embracing them, tend to conquer everyone over time. However, however advantageous they may be, they do not always bury well-established previous advances. The cinema did not end with the theater nor did television with the cinema or the theater. Not even the videos killed the radio star, because until recently there was room for everyone.
But in those times the digital revolution burst onto the scene, which is not only on the way to changing the rules of the game, but also to deciding who is in charge in this chaotically globalized world. The victor, if there is one, will claim to dominate our entire planet. The two great powers, the United States and China, look to the future, while Russia is distracted, through an absurd and anachronistic war in Ukraine, thinking of recovering a past as fanciful as it is irretrievable. As for the EU, who knows? Well, at any moment we could go back to our old ways, let no one doubt it.
There are indicators that indicate that the hegemony that the West has been exercising with an iron fist and technological superiority for more than 500 years has begun to decline. It is the law of life. No power is eternal, nor are religions, ideologies, languages or nations, not to mention the diversity of species that populate the planet.
Herodotus (484-425 B.C.) recounts, in book II of his Histories, the arrival of the Ionians and Carians in an Egypt that is about to be dominated by a certain Psammetic. The latter, seeing the warlike superiority of these foreign looters armed with bronze, a novelty in the country of the Nile, befriends them, and in exchange for their support he promises to reward them with the delivery of some land to inhabit. In addition, Herodotus explains, “he entrusted some Egyptian children to them so that they could teach them the Hellenic language; and of those who learned the language are the descendants of the current interpreters of Egypt”.
But these Hellenes not only wore bronze armor but also possessed a weapon that was to initiate the decline of the Egyptian Empire's power, namely an alphabet. Thanks to these Hellenic interpreters, Herodotus continues, “we know exactly everything that happened around Egypt, starting from King Psametric and later, since they were the first of another language to settle in Egypt. […] Psametric, then, in this way he dominated Egypt”.
The digital revolution is based on a language -or language- that is on its way to becoming universal, if it hasn't already. Who dominates it, will dominate the world. The curious thing is its tendency to emulate the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians, just as they are, without going any further, the emoji, which we all use.
It was calculated in 2017 that there were already 2,666 standardized emoji in circulation. Not bad when compared to the thousand known Egyptian hieroglyphics. And those who swim like a fish in water when it comes to pictograms are precisely the Chinese, who are already on their way to unseating the capricious child megamillionaires of Silicon Valley.
Will the AI be the one that gives the final lace to our civilization? With the one that is falling, it is increasingly difficult to shake off the feeling that we are surrounded by "new Hellenes" who do not give a damn about the fate of our imperfect but beloved civilization.
