IGods Quotes
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We will still need to consider the implications of our blind faith in technology because the iGods’ promises did not point to or include the divine. Instead, they suggested that we are becoming divine as we develop such amazing intelligence within smaller and smaller devices, so small that a point of Singularity will blur humanity with machine, our minds with eternity. Should we find this inspiring or distressing? What is the telos of technology—the end goal?
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When it comes to technology, we celebrate the icons of Silicon Valley as iGods worth emulating. We reward them for granting us superpowers. With a smartphone in our pocket, we can transcend the bodily limits of space and time. We can send and receive, buy and sell, upload and download with a swipe of our finger.
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The iGods started pure—Google wasn’t sure they wanted advertising. Going public with their stock resulted in the need for quarterly returns. It forced Google and Facebook to bow down to the even greater gods of commerce. The question of access remains. Who will control the flow of information? Will a few get rich at the expense of others? Techno-enthusiasts at the annual TED conference envision a gift economy where the sharing of ideas leads to profound breakthroughs in science and education. Others fear the controlling power of information technology. What happens when the information we share freely is aggregated aggressively, when too much information lands in the hands of the wrong company or country?
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This is the iGods’ alluring and dangerous promise—to place us in the center of our own self-reflexive universe. But what if we don’t necessarily know what is best?