Technology and progress: do we know where we’re going?

Technology and progress: do we know where we’re going?

 

Today’s society is constantly changing due to large daily influxes of data and information which we are unable to fully process and understand. The Vision and Global Trends platform held a conference on January 28, 2020 in the Chamber of Deputies titled “Information flows and decision-making processes.” This conference was attended by academics, scholars, and professionals with the goal of reflecting on this new age and the effects it will have on the world moving forward. Terms such as big data, fake news, social media, digital and artificial intelligence, and more are becoming part of our vocabulary, but we still have yet to understand what their future implications will be.

 

The large increase in available data has transformed the ways we receive knowledge and information. Information is now available to everyone at rapid speeds unlike in the past where knowledge was typically passed from person to person. Every citizen has the ability to participate in and contribute to public debates online, often without having proper knowledge on the topic in question, hence the prevalence of fake news. As discussed at the aforementioned conference, we must invest in culture and cognitive tools in order to take advantage of the digital revolutions taking place instead of falling victim to them. Only through these actions can we fully master the potential of the digital and technological revolutions