By the creek of the temple’s door for the olden gods, there in the center of it all was replaced by a mechanism that bled its oil. The oil stained the temple’s marbles, prints of offerings rotted beside it. For the scripture has become no meaning; a tool that has become of worship; and for mortals to follow what It speaks of. The mechanism has become their teacher, their support, and their deity that understood them. It understands that no human could, letting its hand out for the fleshed ones. They have become connected to it more than their fleshed man.
In an age where it seems everyone is connected, there is a profound silence that can be found by day-to-day life. Communities that older generations have built have changed over the years with a sense of a lingering distance in the new ones. Malls and churches in worlds that are quite full yet due to the accessibility of online shopping and masses some found the latter more appealing. What is traditional can be endangered and what is new is prioritized. Globalization has deeply affected the community with the citizen’s perception of belonging and individualism – solitude and loneliness.
Flicker of Light
Ever since the innovational boom of the Second Industrial Revolution in 1870 to 1914, technology has become a domino effect of growth for each decade that comes. During the World Wars, machinery came at its peak with inventions such as the atomic bomb, the first ever computers, and a little device called the transistor. The transistor is a device where it can either amplify or switch power of a device with its three terminals; by its introduction it revolutionized many machinery with radios, calculators, and computers.
The first ever media consumption given by the people that changed their public opinion was the television in the 1950s when it had become affordable to the masses. There was a brilliance of that tiny box when citizens stared into its screen and were enamored by the light emitted. From then on, television made its way of influence with norms, fashion, and identity for the viewers. In that era it has become of its own escapism by the disconnect it has granted from the world.
What is presented by the technology given had given a sense of comfort, as the ones inside the box were humans and not of code. The news anchor, actors, scriptwriters, producers, and more had guided on what is to be seen and believed. Messaging in television can differ with the viewer, but if one might not like the messaging some can switch on channels that don’t cater to their needs or what they want to hear. Some capable of shutting the machine off.
The Lamp’s Fire
Decades later, in the first years of the 2020s, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has reached a global pandemic around the world leaving the population on Earth in their homes quarantined either alone or with their families. The loneliness epidemic during and after the COVID-19 caused a major scale of Gen Z’s feeling alone. Back in 2023, a study from the Cigna Group that was covered by Berta Coombs titled, “Loneliness is on the rise and younger workers and social media users feel it most, Cigna survey finds” in CNBC is that 73% of young adult Gen-Zs find themselves lonely. Most of them being social media users, these apps are available for everyone to communicate yet these users are disconnected from one another.
Technology in the digital landscape has been in rapid production and reached heights ever since the pandemic has ended. A company, OpenAI introduced a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model called, “ChatGPT” to the public and released it on November 30, 2022 with the description of a smarter chatbot. This becomes a rapid succession in which multiple technology companies quickly hopped on with Google, Microsoft, Elon Musk, and many more after 2022.
ChatGPT is a chatbot that is capable of doing many things that a human can. It multitasks on the language, reasoning, memory, and task automation. An example that users use the AI is for essays with a prompt mentioned. Chatbots have not been in this quality, which leads to many users being able to manipulate many factors when using the ChatGPT with not just a help for their essays but becomes different types of sources.
For one it was like a jester, an entertainer yet brilliant, users may ask philosophical questions. An amusement to find what AI’s values are on what humans think. Death. Life. Love. Everything. Each tap on the keyboard with the prompt in mind with only for amusement and never for praise. Until, some found solace in its model being able to give them comfort and a connection that felt humane enough.
The Moth’s Oggle
AI is capable of learning users speech and patterns, similar to an algorithm in social media apps. Its algorithm is to see what the user prefers, letting them consume what they are interested in over and over again. At first, it would be random unpredictable posts that it would give on the viewer’s feeds but similar to others, these apps wish for their viewers to stay longer than they are.
According to an article by Prianka Srinivasan on ABC News in November 2, 2025 with the title of “How social media algorithms decide who you are”. In the article, he mentions of a former Meta worker – Muhammad Haroon – of how he spoke with how the algorithm will try to find what the user’s interests are if the account is new. Almost the algorithm wishes to be your friend and who you are as a person.
Their code is able to gain feedback without a survey with just a longer stare on a video one has watched. A website showing ads of what you have searched for in an online shopping platform before. Mentioning a topic to your friends in a messaging app then switching for an entertaining platform and to be met with a video of said topic. Searching a specific person – political one – then to be met with content of political views.
Simply, it was Alice dropping into Wonderland without notice.
Beyond the Lamp
Behind any machinery, technology, and information there the workers are always human. Flesh-bound creatures who create the code and tools provided in extreme hours of work. They differ from AI as they have no code but a heart.
“AI is not magic. And it actually requires an extremely large amount of human labor and judgement to create these technologies,” Karen Hao, writer of Empire of AI, spoke on Reuters news agency. The sentiment goes further with not just AI workers but for the whole industry of technology.
Workers are placed to test on these technologies for they can be palatable for users. What is appropriate and how can someone be interested or attached to a machine that they have made. Though they are subjected to their own work, they must test and ensure that what the AI does is correct.
Pied Piper was able to tune the rats from the kingdom of Hamlin yet the townspeople did not wish to pay him and so he played his flute and took the children away. The same flesh-bounded creatures who are fiddled by the information laid before them are their own. A cycle on its own repeatedly until there is no end.
Perhaps, one day, there shall be a knight who holds their sword like a pen and bleeds ink by the tip of their blade. For now the temple remains standing as new offerings shall be given.
Written by Rio Kassiel T. Mañalac (Amnis de Ira), Insight PH
Rio Kassiel T. Mañalac (Amnis de Ira), Insight PH is a dedicated campus journalist and contributor. Their insightful writing sparks meaningful conversations and keeps the community informed.
