Technology has never made the world clearer and more transparent — it simply accelerates and amplifies everything human. The Enlightenment belief in reason and science promised to unveil the world and make it a better place to live. The experiences of the twentieth century showed that a rational and technical approach leads to efficiency, but not to justice or happiness. The experiences of the twenty-first century reveal something else: technology — satellites, neural networks, or algorithms — not only fails to help organize reality but actually makes it even more confusing. Before the eyes of bewildered humanity, a mountain of big data, a multitude of information, and media content of unclear origin pile up, from which conspiracy theories, fundamentalism, and populist speculations sprout. Meanwhile, we are losing track of how algorithms and artificial intelligence actually work. The brilliant study Dark Tomorrows tells the story of how we have become estranged from our own technologies and what that may mean for the world of tomorrow.
