Has the Computer Made People any Better?

Foolish question, right?

But it's not such a foolish question, actually. There are lot of people who believe it has - using the rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence, to make their point. The Spam filter in my Gmail, works fine, and keeps getting better, as I show it where it has made mistakes, and put the wrong mail in Spam.

But on the other had, it is clear that our ability to govern ourselves has deteriorated - as shown by the election of Trump in America, and the rise of many other authoritarian leaders, in the world.

Computers have gotten better, but people have not. And in some ways, they have gotten worse.

Their technology made them believe they were superhuman, when they were actually becoming subhuman. The classical example of this was the Nazis.

But something similar happened in America. They had technologies (manufacturing and transportation) that made them rich and powerful (especially back in the Fifties) - and they thought, this proved they were better.

I remember that time well, and I remember when their power diminished - later in that Century. Their solution was simple - they didn't notice it! And in fact, they stopped noticing most social events. They became social incompetents.