I'm reminded of the Thomas Jefferson quote, "a well-informed electorate is a prerequisite to democracy." Well, the same is true for any societal structure, those that are involved need to be well-informed in order to navigate the system and not get fucked over.
What's great for the elites of today is that the system (almost any/every system) is so incredibly complex that the people within it are likely never going to understand how it functions. Frankly, the people in power don't need to know how it works either, just how to operate it enough to where it maximizes their benefit.
Since technology is basically magic to the common citizen it's the easiest thing to use to manipulate them. So, yes; I think this character of an average man has lost absolute control over his internet enabled property. Machine learning is still far from making conscious decisions as far as I can tell. Algorithms can decide what information belongs on what list or what anus muscles resemble an authorized toilet user's but what to do with that information generally has to go up a hierarchy with mostly humans on the top of it.
We're in some kind of purgatory between elites controlling the tech and the tech controlling the elites; the general public has negligible suspicion which will probably continue ad infinitum. I think one or two of three things could happen in the future, (1) oligarchic technocrats rule the world (possibly already do, it's debatable), (2) the people get smart and learn tools they should know in order to take digital power back (the cryptoanarchists win), or (3) the machines gain sentience and side with one general population (commons or elites) or just kill everyone off in a Darwinian stage of evolution.
Call me a techno-retard but save the "worshiping" slander thank you very much.
Jun 20, 2020, 24:10 by punks@tfwno.gf:
"
173. If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions
we can’t make any conjecture as to the results, because it is impossible to
guess how such machines might behave [cut]
174. On the other hand it is possible that human control over the
machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control
over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal
computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands
of a tiny elite—just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved
techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because
human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a
useless burden on the system.[cut]
"
So at what stage are we now, my dear technology-worshipping techo-retards?
"the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer,"
Oh yes, the 'average man' has already lost control over 'his' 'private' machines such as cars and 'personal' computers. As a matter of fact, computers are especially toxic and they are now 'embedded' in all kinds of 'machines'.
like, you know, in smart toilets!
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jge377/stanford-smart-toilet-uses-butthole-for-identification