WE ARE NO MORE MADE UP OF BLOOD AND FLESH
As Yuval Harai says that humans are constituted by two strong characteristics-physical strength and cognitive power. Post-industrial revolution, our physical strength is only valuable in show business and jobs that required strength was taken over by mechanical machines. Now with IT revolution, computer algorithms are gradually overpowering our cognitive power by introducing a fair chance of our present jobs to be done by AI enabled machines in near future.
The point to ponder what is happening around us and why. Let us take some examples-
1/ Footfalls at bank branches have come down to almost zero because banks have come to the consumer electronically and business transaction are happening on mobile devices.
2/ Retailers, whether superstores or small shops are closing down because of the electronic virtual ecosystem is enabling the consumers to buy or sell anything anytime and anywhere at our conveniences. The ecosystem is so advance where it filters our items to my liking and price thus reducing time to shop and giving me more time to myself
3/ Bookstores and print media too, are evaporating because of digital media available on a click, providing instant gratification. For bookworms, to get all the books, once upon a time was challenging and had a big lead time. Now the same content is digitally gets delivered directly as soon available in the market. For those who don’t want to read, video or audiobooks are available to keep them aware and plugged in.
In all the above cases, the common pattern is that the communication is happening between two technological components one is the platform and the other being the ‘virtual you’ captured in a digital profile.
The reasoning is simple…like in the past you would reach out to family, friends or neighbours to get information of a specific individual. Depending on the context of appropriate information is gathered, like local grocers will maintain records on food habits of people, matrimonial context will collate information around education, financial etc.
Similarly depending on the platform, you interact w/, it will store your contextual information to serve you better in future. And will continue to collect till the virtual you will not reside at house #, Street, City and PIN but an IP address having details associated to you which are collected by footprint we leave on during our time spent on platforms and social challenges.
So me in the new age is no more human with flesh and blood but an IP address of my digital profile always available online.
