Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
I’ve
been reading science fiction all my life, starting with the Mushroom
Planet books when I was seven or eight, graduating to Heinlein and
Asimov as a teenager, and branching out from there. Back in the
eighties and nineties, I sampled a lot of cyber-punk: Pat Cadigan,
Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, William Gibson and their comrades.
These authors imagined (or predicted?) many aspects of the modern
Internet, decades in advance, and a startling number of their visions
have become part of our everyday life.
A
vast, worldwide, constantly accessible network of knowledge? These
days, who could live without Wikipedia, Quora and YouTube? Voice
queries, reminiscent of “2001: A Space Odyssey”? Siri and Alexa
do quite a bit better than H.A.L. Instant notification about events?
Telepresence? Synthetic on-line worlds where you can interact with
avatars and artificial agents? Trends and fads that emerge, take
control of the popular psyche then die off a matter of days? I first
met all these ideas in science fiction stories.
There’s
one aspect of today’s digital world, though, that no author whom I
read predicted: the demise of truth.
You
can find literally anything on the Internet – including completely
contradictory sets of facts, multiple conflicting descriptions of
events, alternative histories. It’s scary to realize that there is
no such thing anymore as an authoritative source. We tend to believe
and trust people who agree with us, but fundamentally that is just
bias. Anyone who can tell a convincing story (and the Internet has
nurtured and rewarded individuals who have this skill) can acquire a
following of believers, no matter how absurd that story might appear
to someone outside their circle. Some people are certain the moon
landing in 1969 was a hoax – that the Holocaust never happened –
that Elvis is still out there somewhere, shaking his hips and
breaking hearts.
“Ah,
but there’s evidence,” you might say. “Photographs. Historical
records. Documents that support some stories and debunk others. Data
that can be consulted and analyzed in order to choose one
interpretation over another.” Alas, that might have been true a
decade or two ago, but the digitalization of our existence means that
absolutely everything is mutable. Photographs can be doctored without
leaving the slightest trace, or even generated de novo – not
just by humans but by AI systems who’ve been fed millions of
similar examples. Deep-fake video technology makes it possible to
literally put words in someone’s mouth. Software bots can invade
social networks to manipulate so-called “popular opinion”,
influencing elections and changing history. (But in fact, there is no
one “history”. Even before the Internet, every country, culture
and group had its own historical narrative.)
Most
information needed to keep the world running is currently stored in
digital form, in databases of one form or another. That information
is unbelievably vulnerable to corruption, both accidental and
deliberate. Given today’s technology, it would not be that
difficult to erase all primary records of the moon landing to support
the hoax claim. One doesn’t have to be a tech wizard to fabricate a
totally believable case for almost any wild theory. It’s happening
all the time, right now – as you read this blog post.
Now,
I remember that initial walk on the moon with great clarity. I was in
my senior year in high school, an enthusiastic science geek as well
as a reader of science fiction, and from my perspective, this was
definitely our first step toward a bright future in an expanding
universe. Time corrodes our memories, though. When I compare notes
with my husband of forty years about some past event we both
experienced, we often have wildly differing recollections. The older
I get, the less certain I am that even my most cherished and vibrant
memories are accurate.
As
prescient as the authors of my youth turned out to be, I can’t
recall any of them portraying a world where it was impossible to know
what was true. Honestly, this wreaks havoc with almost any
philosophical perspective.
As
a former researcher and computer professional, I’ve been aware of
the malleability of truth for quite a while, but the COVID-19
epidemic has shown me just how impossible it has become to discern
“the truth”. Every day we are bombarded with “scientific data”
and presented with the conclusions of so-called experts. The same
statistics will be interpreted in completely opposite directions,
depending on the nationality, the politics or the predispositions of
the person offering up conclusions. The average person has probably
looked at more graphs over the past three months than in the previous
two decades. Is he or she any closer to the truth about this crazy
disease? What a ridiculous notion!
So
where does that leave me – or us? How can we cope in an environment
where we’re bombarded by information, any and all of which could be
manufactured to serve someone’s agenda – or simply in error due
to sloppy programming? Sounds pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?
Well,
I have two answers. First of all, we can trust our direct experience,
more at least than we can trust something we read on Facebook, USA
Today, or The New York Times. Be observant; use your eyes and ears;
keep an open mind. If someone claims that immigrants are criminal
degenerates, think about the immigrants you know personally. (And if
you don’t know any personally, perhaps you should seek some out.)
If you read that anyone who likes to watch porn is psychologically
diseased and incapable of having normal relationships – well, ask
yourself whether the examples you have in your environment confirm
this claim.
Second,
we can educate ourselves about the fragility of truth in our digital
world, be skeptical about every claim, and examine the mustered
evidence as objectively as possible. I noted above that almost any
sort of information can be faked, but consistency is still a
reasonable criterion for evaluating a story. It’s possible to
construct an intricate edifice of lies to support a false conclusion,
but it’s difficult to make all the pieces fit together perfectly –
at least right now.
There
is one prediction that shows up a lot in eighties and nineties scifi
that hasn’t yet come to fruition – the idea that neural
stimulation could create artificial sensory experiences so vivid and
convincing that you couldn’t tell the difference between a
stim-dream and real life. There are advances in neuroscience that
point in that direction, but we’re not there yet.
I
rather hope we never get to that point. Already I lament the way so many of our experiences have switched from direct to mediated. Why
go out on a date when you can chat on Messenger? Why bother to travel
when you can browse Instagram or binge on YouTube? Why have sex when
you can sext?
As
I see it, some things can be imitated, but not truly replaced. I
cling to that life-preserver as I navigate the shifting seas of
today’s digital existence.
