Folklore warns us about the incubus and succubus – demons who exploit our natural desires in order to manipulate and corrupt us. This, in a nutshell, is the dominant business model of the 21st century.
Look at what surrounds us. We have appetizing food that fattens but does not nourish, dynamic media that outrages but does not inform, and advanced medicine that relieves symptoms but does not heal. Our screens deliver laughter without joy, sex without love, and information without wisdom.
Once you notice the pattern, you see it everywhere. Like the soft, white, machine-made bread that replaced the hearty loaves of yesteryear, everything around us has been stripped of its value, retaining only the qualities that make it attractive.
Wilderness vs. Technology
In the horror series Yellowjackets, a group of plane crash survivors are tormented and, at times, possessed by a malevolent force they refer to as “the Wilderness.” This is a curious inversion of our daily reality, in which we are tormented and, at times, possessed by the malevolent force of technology.
The young protagonists of Yellowjackets struggle to maintain their humanity and integrity when confronted by fear and temptation, and we do as well. While the fictional characters are worn down by deprivation, it is not emptiness that degrades our souls, but engorgement. Mentally, physically, and emotionally, we are over-stuffed by the products of machinery and artifice.
You don’t have to believe in demons to see possession in action. Just look at the intent focus and worshipful attention of someone scrolling on his or her phone. Possession means to own and control, and our ancestors were wary of entities that would seek to do this to us. Today, those entities are omnipresent. Through algorithms and AI, they beckon to us with the ultimate seduction: the promise to give us what we want before we even know we want it.
Unfortunately, just as the “Wilderness” of Yellowjackets pushes the castaways toward unspeakable atrocities, our machines push us towards the worst aspects of our psyche. The seven deadly sins – pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth – are the fuel that drives the online ecosystem that we increasingly inhabit.
And it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
AI and the End of Taboos
Today, AI software is capable of generating photorealistic images – and, increasingly, video – of the most horrific depravity, with only a few clicks. Historically, representations of violent and sexual fantasies of an extreme nature was somewhat limited by the barriers of reality, distribution, and social taboo. AI has torn through those barriers as if they were tissue paper.
Although the mainstream has not quite caught on yet, the last few years have witnessed the birth of an entire online subculture devoted to refining and perfecting AI technology that reliably and efficiently delivers the most horrible imagery imaginable to the privacy of your screen, no questions asked.
The power of these tools – for seduction, corruption, and possession – is beyond anything we have ever faced as a species. Websites freely available online will generate things worse than you can imagine. The tools hidden in the corners of the Dark Web are even worse.
This is not a theoretical and abstract problem – it is a practical one. What happens to a society when each individual’s worst impulses can be nurtured and indulged without accountability or shame?
A Place for Things
Like a tree that looks strong from the outside, but is rotting away on the inside, our society is being hollowed out - infested by parasitic systems and constructs that consume everything substantive, leaving only filth and waste in their wake.
Virtually every human wisdom tradition characterizes existence as a struggle between forces that foster happiness and life, and forces that promote misery and death. The methods by which each faction pursues its goals are virtually indistinguishable, across all belief systems. Happiness and life come from integrity, compassion, truth, justice, and family. Misery and death come from manipulation, selfishness falsity, depression, and enmity.
In this spiritual conflict, which is waged both within each individual and within our society as a whole, technological mediation rarely serves the side of virtue. By separating us from each other and from authentic experience, machines and screens create spaces that undermine our health and wellbeing.
In the underrated satirical dark comedy Gremlins 2, the malicious creatures overrun an urban skyscraper – a temple to modernity, consumerism, and technology. In the wake of their devastation, a human character grimly comments, “You make a place for things ... Things come.” We have indeed made a place for things, and they are already here.