Tech giants are going to face a reckoning of their own making - Ismail Mulla

The web was supposed to democratise the world. Give people equal agency. What was promised was a consumerist nirvana. Next day delivery on the latest items. Entertainment at the click of a button. Communication with anyone, anywhere at any time.

Instead of delivering utopia, many ordinary people are beginning to realise that what has been put in front of them is nothing short of a dystopian nightmare.

I still remember the early excitement as a young boy operating a computer at infants school making simple landscape drawings on a basic illustration software. And then using a word processor on my dad’s work issued laptop to write stories on.

My first interaction with the web was researching ancient Egypt. With my dad’s help I was able to print off reams of useful information, enabling me to excel during history lessons.

That world of dial-up connections and text-based webpages would be completely unrecognisable today.

Instead we’re far more advanced. Artificial intelligence (AI) allows people to knock up realistic looking videos in no time. No need to trawl through reams and reams of text, just ask one of the many AI driven platforms to give you the answer that you need. Primitive illustrations? How about a professional looking poster in a format fit for print at a click of a button.

All sounds very good. But there is a negative impact from all of this that slowly people are beginning to pick up on.

The most obvious is the damaging impact social media is having on young children. But even adults are suffering from the unintended consequences of tech. It’s making people lazier and less curious.

Creativity is being driven out and replaced with paint-by-numbers slop.

And then there are the nefarious uses that frontier technology is being deployed for.

Grifters who couldn’t formulate two coherent thoughts are able to peddle pervasive narratives online and even in books. Children not only being exposed to the most vile content but also being empowered to create their own.

It’s got to the point where even teachers are concerned about deepfakes being made of them using artificial intelligence (AI) and being filmed without their consent. Staff are facing “a terrifying new frontier of digital harassment”, says NASUWT general secretary Matt Wrack.

Today’s children are being hooked onto screens from an early age. So much so that the Government has issued new guidance on keeping meal and bedtimes screen-free and limiting screen time to an hour a day for 2- to 5-year-olds.

None of this screams a healthy society. There is talk of curbing tech firms, especially social media companies but actually they will be their own undoing.

I’ve already seen people from my own generation, Millennials, retreating from the online world. The first generation that really embraced the online world. Friends often reflect on their being too much noise.

We’re becoming more and more disillusioned with the whole thing. Even everyday practical tasks are becoming onerous.

Recently I tried purchasing an item on Amazon thinking it would be easier. Only to be greeted by sponsored link after sponsored link offering worthless tat. It took over an hour to get to the item I needed. In that time I could have walked into our town centre, got the item needed and been back home, all the while enjoying some fresh air.

The retreat from tech can be seen in the world of wrist watches. Smart watches remain popular and to a great extent useful but more and more people are discovering the joys of wrist wear that is disconnected from the world. So much so that mechanical timepieces are enjoying a resurgence. Even I’ve been sucked in. There’s something cathartic about waking up in the morning and picking up the watch from the night stand and winding it up for the rest of the day ahead.

Maybe it is a sign that the time for tech domination into our lives is up.