The Myth of the Boiling Frog
By: Stan Daskalov
Tags: Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Life, Psychology, Philosophy

How gradual change goes unnoticed until it’s far too late.

The idea goes like this: If you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out. But if you put it in lukewarm water and gradually increase the temperature, it won’t notice and it will be cooked alive.

While this, of course, isn’t actually true, it paints a useful picture that feels far too familiar… And is rather disconcerting.

For it appears to be a common view — that the world around us is changing at an exponential rate — technologically, culturally, and politically.

As it seems to begin with scientific development (and rightly so), which then becomes technological innovation, which in turn affects us culturally, and finally leads to sudden political shifts, which would have been considered outrageous just barely a decade ago.

And, in fact, many of them were. Just as many more are today — at what seems to be an ever increasing pace.

But imagine this —have the so called ‘outrage’ or perhaps even ‘cancel’ culture been an inevitable, natural development?

If you’ve ever thought about the internet as a concept, then I expect your answer would be ‘yes’.

After all, neither the concepts of ‘outrage’, nor ‘cancelling’ are particularly new or unfamiliar to history, and yet, either they suddenly became popular, or we suddenly felt that the water is hot.

And if you break down what the internet actually is in simple terms — a method for near-instantaneous, world-wide communication that currently, more than half the human population is taking part in — you get your answer.

It’s both.

We were ‘suddenly’ given a platform to voice our thoughts, feelings, opinions, and analyses… And we could ‘suddenly’ see and hear everyone else’s, too.

But this, of course, wasn’t the case before the so-called ‘social media’ became prevalent… Which are what, exactly?

…An inevitable development of the internet, just as the internet is an inevitable development of computing.

And all of this was preceded by television and radio — except, you might say, that those methods of communication were not available for everyone to take part in… Perhaps you could be right.

…Except that, in reality, all that’s different about them is that the internet has simply become cheaper and more efficient at transmitting information.

After all, once you have a device and a connection, communication is practically free. The cost is in building and maintaining the infrastructure — not in sending the message.

As technology becomes more potent and efficient, it increases our capacity to develop more potent and efficient versions of itself.

And so, we end up witnessing the world pass us by, often without having time to think, say, or do anything about it.

It is almost as if the conditions for the development of an Artificial Super-intelligence were set in motion by the very development of human consciousness… Which, in turn, was set in motion by the very development of life on Earth.

And if that’s the case… Then what this means is that the idea of a technological singularity would also have been set in motion by those exact same events.

In other words, it is entirely possible that the path on which we are headed is, in fact, an inevitable consequence of evolution — that the ‘telos’ or ‘natural end’ of biological life is… Machine life.

Just as living beings are composed of things which are not ‘living’, and consciousness is composed of things which are not ‘conscious’, so would mechanical life be composed of things which are neither ‘mechanical’, nor ‘alive’. A human-machine symbiote… Which is precisely what humanity has always been — a monkey with a spear, a monkey with a gun.

A monkey with a screen, a monkey with the power of the sun.

And it is also to no surprise, that just as all previous methods of communication would regulate their content, and therefore censor what would jeopardise their broadcasting — so too would social media companies.

Except, that this time, nearly everyone is part of it, meaning that to censor is to exile — and to support is to sanction.

It is certainly the case that many of these companies already have enough power and influence that they could be listed as small nations. And at this point, there is nothing that can be done about it.

The water is already boiling hot.

What’s more, it is not that this ‘could not have been foreseen’ — it probably was by some — but rather, that it simply could not have been otherwise.

The very end goal of the internet is to digitize our lives… Entirely.

For if it can be digitized — it will be digitized. Since the advantages are overwhelming, and the disadvantages are sentimental at best — what will transpire is the complete digitization of the human mind.

And when it comes to our bodies, the same trend will continue as it always has — we will simply neglect them, until we finally leave them behind.

But there is nothing to lament here.

There is nothing lost, and nothing gained.

It is merely the nature of humanity emerging

in the shape of its own creation.

Some are beginning to realise where we are headed,

and in their panic ask us to turn back.

Others are staring far into a void,

and cynically dismissing the reality of our own condition.

But make no mistake —

it is a deeply human condition.

And if you ask at what point the water was too hot,

the answer is…

It was boiling much before we jumped into the pond.