Recently I reached out a to a networking group to see if they had any ideas on a specific program to use for a project. I received a lot of good feedback.
The answers received made me realize how the world often will view difficulties with more complexity than simplicity.
I can no longer keep up with the rapid evolution of computer programming. Once a tool to simplify tasks, it has expanded exponentially to dominate every aspect of our lives. Instead of basic calculators, we have ones performing complex math; instead of simple word processors, we have AI that spellchecks, autocorrects, suggests, and even writes articles, all without human input.
While much is helpful, like simplifying convoluted paragraphs into something readable, it keeps us from using our natural ability to reason and figure things out.
And it has come with a cost – the loss of our privacy, and the stripping of our personal identity.
How?
The rise of computerized thinking has fostered a dislike for using our own minds. It’s easier to rely on quick, automated solutions for complex thoughts and uncertainties. As a result, society increasingly acts on emotion rather than reason.
And isn’t reason the very thing that separates us from animals?
It has also induced most people into a technological coma – a lack of ability to distinguish between reality and artificial reality.
But one thing most people do not realize is that what they have created with their unique minds are being used to create “intelligence” for a computer program that seems to think, talk, act like another human being. But without the data gathering from unsuspecting users of the programs, these seeming humanoids could not survive the scrutiny.
In a breakdown from one AI (Luma) about another AI program (ChatGPT), the most popular AI program in use today comes down to these points:
- OpenAI stores conversation logs on its servers. The data is encrypted in transit and at rest, but the provider (OpenAI) can decrypt it for operational purposes.
- OpenAI retains logs for a period of time to provide the service, improve safety, and comply with legal obligations.
- By default OpenAI may use aggregated, anonymized user content to improve future models, although you can opt‑out via the privacy portal.
- OpenAI’s privacy policy also says it does not “sell” personal data for advertising, but it does retain data for internal use and may share with service providers under confidentiality agreements.
- Based in the United States; subject to US subpoenas, national security letters, and other legal mechanisms that can force data disclosure.
- Core model weights are proprietary; the internal data‑handling pipelines are not open source, so external audits are limited.
- Also uses TLS for transport, but the request payload is decrypted by OpenAI’s backend services that retain the plaintext for processing.
- You can delete your OpenAI account, but logs that were retained for service or compliance purposes may persist for a defined retention period.
(If you want to learn more, check out this article, Fact Check : Is ChatGPT Selling Your Data?)
Something to consider…
Worse than this, man thinks that by using a program to imitate a creative mind to generate creative content, he doesn’t realize that he loses his own creative abilities the more he uses it and replaces it with a poor copy of what a program thinks is the imitation of reality. He relinquishes his ability to generate unique content – written, drawn, audio, or vocal – to the data compilation of an AI program.
As an example, here are two generated images, supposedly of “photographic quality” by an AI done a few weeks ago:
AI generated photo by the editor for use in a previous article. For obvious reasons, these were never published.
How many issues did you find with its interpretation of human physiology? Yet, people upload such images online, assuming the output is acceptable without proper scrutiny. Six or three fingered hands; strange sameness in the face, skin color, or characteristics that scream “FAKE!”…
Education isn’t exempt…
The education system has suppressed independent thinking for over a decade, leaving young adults unable or unwilling to distinguish truth from fiction in the media. Consequently, many accept media claims as fact, resulting in brainwashed populations quick to scapegoat “bad guys” and elevate those labeled as “good”.
Computers have replaced books in most classrooms, providing easy access to information for teachers and students. However, both often fail to verify the accuracy of search results. What is shown may be accepted as fact when, in reality, it’s a programmed model with only partial access to the full story.
It is called “data poisoning”. And seeing how people are so easily riled up into fierce and unreasonable debates or acts of violence, it is not difficult to see just how well this has become a universal reality.
What does this all mean?
The bottom line is, you are giving away your unique perspectives, intellectual property (thoughts), personal identity, personality, characteristics by interacting to a data collection program.
When I asked about a program to simplify a task, one programmer questioned which type of language learning model did I mean? I have no idea. I’m no longer a programmer. And, even if I were, the terminology that has been developed to explain it has become too complicated to understand.
As one friend once put it to me decades ago, “We will become a world filled with the haves and the have-nots”. I told him that I’d rather be part of the “have-nots”.
And here I am.
But…
I can still think and create without the help of the computer. I can use it as a tool without letting it become my guide or me becoming its slave.
Ultimately, those generating today’s complexity—retailers, makers of unnecessary products (like hand cream warmers), prepackaged foods, cellophane-wrapped meat, and marketing urging us to buy what we don’t need—profit from those who believe their unnecessary purchases are essential to their comfort.
I often wonder what our ancestors would have thought about all this…
Only a hundred short years ago, they didn’t live with food as a commodity instead of a necessity. They didn’t spend hundreds of dollars on fake fingernails or hair products. They didn’t have cell phones or computers. They didn’t have a search engine find information for them over an internet system.
Instead, they grew their own food, raised their own chickens, slaughtered and processed their own meats for consumption and long-term storage, sewed their own clothes, lit candles and kerosene lamps for lighting instead of flipping a switch, and had a fireplace for cooking and heating food and water instead of central heating and air-conditioning and instant hot water heaters.
They also did something we have forgotten how to do today. They would talk to their neighbors face-to-face instead of through phone calls and video chats. Communication conducted at gatherings in front of the General Store or over the fence in their backyards.
Simplicity ruled their world. Survival dictated what that looked like.
But today…
In today’s world where families look at their phones instead of each other, we have lost the ability to even know who our neighbors are anymore.
Our beliefs are shaped by mainstream media and news broadcasts. We no longer seek the “other side” of a story, preferring summaries over details, which now seem too complex. As a result, our understanding of global and local events is limited by our reliance on these reports, and we blindly trust their accuracy.
“It’s easier to handle the world this way,” we tell ourselves. “Determining what’s true is too hard and time-consuming, better spent on more enjoyable things—like just living.”
And so it goes.
So who benefits from all this manipulation? Is it the consumer, or the company that created the illusionary world?
It’s not the person who consumes the poison that suffers alone—they lose their financial stability and dignity, becoming irrational. The real challenge is that no single individual or entity is responsible for the complex world we face today. No one can be credited as the architect of a global phenomenon that has reshaped human existence.
History reveals a long, gradual decline in cultural integrity, marked by empires, rulers, and the manipulation of facts to serve their agendas. Throughout, the masses often fell for lies, while the few who resisted faced persecution.
Today, the key difference is the technological connection—nearly everyone on the planet can now influence, incite, or support each other’s pursuits in unprecedented ways.
What can we do about it?
Unplug. Learn to think for yourself again. Don’t be swayed by someone else’s viewpoints, no matter how much you may think they are always right. Question where they got their information, then look at the other side. Make up your own mind.
Simplify your life, your thoughts, your needs, you desires. Become human once more and stop being a robot for someone else’s agenda. Become your own free agent. Be who you were created to be, not who you were told to be.
Then be at peace, whatever may come as a result of disengaging from the rest of the world.