Foucault saw that knowledge and power are the same thing. Social media (and now AI) are seductions to knowledge. They give us the sense that we can become powerful through knowledge and stand in a privileged position over others.
Knowledge and power constantly move in and out of us, creating the self. With each avid acquisition of knowledge, we change ourselves a little bit. We change what we can do, what we think it is rational to do, what is important to do.
The spike in the tail of knowledge-as-power today is that knowledge is cheap. Everyone feels they have it in their back pocket. That is perhaps why so many are driven to publish images of their food. It is a kind of knowledge-power projection – just not a powerful kind.
Power has shifted away from owning knowledge towards renting it, with attendant focus on selection, discrimination and manipulation. That is why so many companies and individuals now study the algorithms that allocate images and texts: to better harvest the attention of the still naive.
Whether or not we understand the intricacies of how social media works, one question we can always ask ourselves is: who am I if I spend my time on this? The answer should give us some inkling of what power is at work.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 2025 AI EVOLUTION
ALL PERVADING EXPANDED HUMAN INTELLIGENCE THROUGH A NEW PARADIGM
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