For a long time, I have been encountering news about artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks, and deep learning, and even cybersecurity in traditional media and websites. Especially towards the end of 2017, news about this subject entered our lives increasingly. I haven’t even fully gotten used to Apple’s Siri or Google’s Google Now as the artificial intelligence products we all know yet. You know when you sit in a cafe and suddenly look back and notice someone watching you, well, a voice inside me says that artificial intelligence has already started watching us.

The first technological tools were made by humans and used by humans, like hammers, wheels. These were completely harmless and we were in 100% control. It was also easy for every human to produce that tool. Think about now, which of the high-tech products can we make at home? Most of us do not even know what is inside them. I think the root of everything was the spread of the printing press and information being easily accessible to everyone. When information, curiosity, and courage combine, we cannot stop ourselves from playing tricks.

As time progressed, technological tools became more complex and human power was insufficient to produce products. That is, we started to produce machines and of course other machines with these machines. Furthermore, we started to need fewer and fewer humans. In the past, while a field could be plowed by 100 people in a day, now 1 person plows a field with a tractor.

Of course, this was not enough either. Now we have self-driving cars. We have digital assistants that monitor our every move and make decisions on our behalf. Think about it, every side street and instant traffic information in Istanbul is recorded in your brain. Moreover, it is updated at any moment. Although it is impossible, we do not need it. Because our navigation application is installed on our smartphone.

Is it artificial intelligence? software? algorithm? or whatever its name is, it has already gone far beyond what an ordinary human can do… If this thing starts to make decisions on its own, I cannot even imagine what it can do with the information and processing power it possesses.

There is a saying in politics… ‘For the people despite the people’. Imagine a self-sufficient artificial intelligence saying ‘For humanity despite human…’. Indeed, if it has a bit of sense (?), it must have realized that the world has gone to rack and ruin and started to be a trouble for humans… Maybe 10, maybe 20 years later, I don’t know, but the trend shows this.

The following words, of which I cannot remember when and who said them first, never left my mind.

While we are trying to humanize machines on one hand, humans are becoming mechanized!

Yes, while we are striving to make everything perfect, we are moving away from our real nature. And by starting to believe in the lies we tell after a while, we come face to face with the painful side of being human.

I hope we understand the value of what we have without looking down on our imperfect lives and hold the plug of whatever this thing called artificial intelligence is in our hands.