Rethinking development by Ramesh Shrestha

Development journey

The carriage of human civilization arrived with a big bang at the platform of the digital age in the 21st century with stopovers in agricultural platforms and industrial platforms, the journey of which started centuries ago. Throughout this journey, humans progressively added knowledge contributing to human development during every stop at different platforms. The knowledge gained in the digital platform affected two fields in particular which may have the most profound impact on the future of human civilization. They are the universal access to social media and globalization of the economy. Social media has impacted people’s behavior on all aspects of our life and living while the globalization of the economy has impacted everything that sustains human’s very own existence as everything surrounding us has been monetized.

Needless to say, both social media and the globalization of the economy have made positive contributions to human development and wealth creation but now human civilization has arrived at a junction where their contributions began showing undesirable impacts. As a result, the development path onwards seems uncertain as we are faced with social, economic, and environmental imbalances. Development is like a human body with multiple components including spirituality which needs to remain in a state of equilibrium for us to function properly. Like human body development is an intricate interaction between various components such as economy, politics, technology, social & cultural values and environment facilitated by politicians, economists, technocrats, bureaucrats and naturalists. The development processes are now faced by universal challenges such as changing social values, extreme income inequality, climate change, extreme technology and ethics.

It is time for policy makers to rethink our development model and draw a new trajectory to save us from uncontrollable chaos or even a potential collapse of human civilization as some of the impacts are irreversible. It is not time to be pessimist but to start a serious debate on realism over optimism. The fundamental question is what is development and for what or for whom? The development experts and policy makers must consider ways and means to pause the process of development or at least slow down the process to stop the decline of human civilization. Obscene income disparity due to greed and moral degeneration with open abuse of authority by people in power have become routine practice everywhere. Spread of substance abuse, violence and conflicts are on the rise. These are indications of the imbalances in the components of development. While we cannot predict our future it is not difficult to imagine what could happen if the situation continues. These problems have been cumulatively building but not fully acknowledged by the politicians, which tied the hands of the policy makers. There are known solutions that must be put to use and explore new solutions to save us from looming disaster.

Role of social media

Social media connected billions of people worldwide for ‘free’. With the introduction of AI, social media has become even more powerful and is playing the role of an invisible teacher for people. One can get answers to any question in seconds. It is very efficient and exciting as one would not have to labor looking for information; it even directs you to ask more, which means keeping you in its sphere of influence. In the process it is slowly taking away people’s thinking and analytical ability, which means degeneration of creativity. In other words, social media, especially AI, is attacking people’s consciousness with negative impacts on short term and long-term memory as they do not have to labor to find an answer by reading and analyzing. It suppresses critical thinking competence of children, which means purposely destroying cognitive development of children. It kills curiosity and undermines researching habits of reading books to find answers. It destroys local social, cultural and ethical behavior of people.

Think for a moment

If I ask a non-physical science question to a Japanese teen and a Jordanian teen (any nationality) they will most likely respond differently based on their local social, cultural, education and ethical behaviors. But if the same question is asked by this Japanese teen and the Jordanian teen to Chatbot they both will get an identical response. Chatbots do not take into account the social and cultural values of Japan and Jordan while formulating the response. It is an incalculable disservice to children everywhere. Now, imagine this on bigger issues on a larger scale. No doubt, social media and AI contribute positively to society but it also cultivates ignorance among people subliminally. If people read, think and analyze independently there will be diversity in responses instead of common views and ideas reinforced by AI. With the spread of AI, it feels like we have contracted human’s thinking responsibilities to AI. It could take the entire idea of development to inhuman times with complete loss of humanity and feeling.

Education boards in some countries have decided to introduce AI in schools starting from grade 9. Grade 9 students are in their early teens. Their cognitive development at this stage is most vulnerable, transiting from childhood to youth. Excessive dependence of children on social media and AI at this age means fragmented and shallow learning. It could also decrease attention span. Students must be taught digital technology in schools but to use AI in classrooms may seem like a bit too far as it suppresses their natural independent thinking and analytical skills. Besides, the responses provided by AI may not always be true.

Sam Altman announced introducing ‘Erotica’ in Chat GPT starting December. The end result is that social media cultivates ignorance in children and youth who may grow up to be a whole new generation of perverts. Age verification can be easily manipulated if necessary. (I do not mean to be rude but this is what I believe.) There is no shortage of people expressing concerns but what we need is action which is grossly missing.

Genie is out of the bottle

Social media and AI have business aspects in their application. Research and development in the field of AI will accelerate as the major tech companies are in fierce competition to innovate new products and capture the markets. These are the powerful tools of the modern elites who would go any distance to control and to generate benefits. By pushing social media and AI, we may be unintentionally suppressing the natural course of cognitive development of children and their natural ability to decide for themselves. Social media and AI will reinforce a common idea/view promoted by the elites, which are being exploited for commercial use. Social media and AI are making children wild and dumb at the same time, not wise. Is it not an issue of ethics?

Genie can’t be put back in the bottle. For the sake of the sanctity of the future generations, the governments, teachers and the parents have the major responsibility to insulate children and youth from the potential harms of social media and AI. Implementation of regulatory mechanisms where they exist is sketchy and may not shield children from the spears of social media and AI.

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