Internet: can the benefits outweigh the damage?
The internet offers great benefits in using large databases and in helping scholarly communication and the like; and it is a marvelous assistant to memory.
On the other hand, it provides endless opportunities to hacking by evil-doers and to deceiving the unwary and the unsophisticated. One might say, speaking broadly and loosely, that the benefits are for white-collar matters while the damage is being done largely at a blue-collar level.
For instance, so-called artificial intelligence favors the elite majority consensus over dissenting minority views [1] and there by tends to represent the lowest common denominator, in other words mediocrity.
The possible damage incurred by the internet is exacerbated by the ruthless and unprincipled behavior of such dominant commercial companies as Facebook. For a devastating expose of that company’s unscrupulous, dishonest behavior and official statements, read the recent book, “Careless People” [2], in particular the last couple of chapters. There are informative examples of how algorithms are designed only to attract growth and advertisers; and the wealth of individual as well as general data gathered by many data brokers as well as Internet companies permits precise individual targeting that can be against the best interests of the targeted individual. For instance, when a teenage girl sees an unflattering photograph of herself posted on Instagram, she is also immediately swamped with advertisements for beauty products and healthy diet and weight-loss diets.
Another book well worth reading In this connection is Kara Swisher’s “Burn Book” [3], a wealth of inside stories about the vaunted Emperors of Silicon Valley who are actually bare of any redeeming clothing.
*********************************************************************************************************
[1] Artificial intelligence --- a dangerous, potentially fatal misnomer; https://henryhbauer.substack.com/p/artificial-intelligence-a-dangerous
[2] Sarah Wynn-Williams, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, Flatiron Books, 2025
[3] Kara Swisher, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, Simon & Schuster, 2024