Our new digital oracle

In the talk below titled ‘The New Paganism: How the Postmodern Became the Premodern’, I was drawn to a number things worth breaking down in this journal. Among them is the compelling idea that the speaker surfaces around the nature of the smartphone being a ‘digital oracle’. This struck me a cogent in a time when one of the key underlying infrastructural pillars of the internet - search - is shifting from search engines to the so-called ‘answer engines’ powered by generative AI.

It’s what you do with an oracle—something very different from simply ‘searching.’ You ask an oracle elaborate, complicated questions, whenever and wherever you choose. You approach it with a complex mix of disbelief, belief, conviction, awe, and perhaps even fear of what answers might come forth. And quite magically, it provides not just answers but, when answers are unclear, a deeper view into your question. It offers perspective and leverage, and it connects you with the people who can help or partner with you on your quest.

I can see our relationship with smartphones - with answer engines at their heart - evolving along very similar lines. At the same time, we tend to invest into this entity a living quality, with its attendent moods and personality. More thoughts to come …