A few years back a friend of mine who studies political science warned me that emerging technology has enabled governments to exert unprecedented control on the public, which they will try to actualize without a doubt. How ironic it is to think that the age of information technology has, contrary to hopes of technological pinoeers, brought us greater concentration of wealth and power in the world. And now the coming of AI is going to make it worse. Looks like we are actually going to see cyberpunk dystopia with our own eyes. What a time.
All frontiers inevitably collapse of course, as with the Old West so with the Internet. But it isn't inevitable WHAT they collapse into. The Old West at least (somewhat) transformed into a thriving society. The Internet, briefly an escape from the stifling control of social conformists, is indeed now collapsing down into a centralized dystopian nightmare. No thoughts but approved thoughts, no commerce but approved commerce, no will but that of the corporation and the state. And again, everyone cheers when it happens to "those people", when "those people" lose their social media account, or their bank account, or their job, or even their freedom. But soon enough YOU are "those people." We all are.