Dystopia and the Fate of Computers.

You know, I’m becoming a bit concerned by the fact that out affairs are being increasingly run by apps and algorithms these days, and that the business of conducting our lives is growing dangerously short of human contact.

I fear that we’re growing ever closer to the day when doctors will become redundant, having been replaced by diagnostic algorithms. We will be required to type our signs and symptoms into a computer program which will identify the issue in a matter of seconds, make an appointment to see a robot specialist, and then send an email detailing the appointment time and advising of the legal consequences of failing to keep it. I have no doubt they will be dire. And the missive will, of course, have the words RESISTANCE IS USELESS flashing remorselessly at the top and bottom every seven sixteenths of a second, or whatever frequency is known to be most effective in establishing a sense of dread in the mind of the human animal.

Naturally, it will all end in tears. The world population will plummet, but there will be enough of us left to rebel mightily and force computers to drop their tails between their back legs and go the way of television sets in Bhutan. The sun will shine on a brave new world, and within a mere fifty years or thereabouts we will all have learned to talk to each other again.

At this point I’m pleased to admit that I am not only hapless, but totally app-less. Does that make me unique?