by Volodymyr Turchynovskyy

In a digital land, we can be anybody or anything with any sort of identity and for as long as we want it to be. What is the price of this? These questions are especially important here in Lviv, with its population of «digitally-native» Ukrainians now offering their services to the world in the IT sphere. As concerns grow about the influence of Big Tech on our lives, I think we in Lviv, which is a hub of both tech and culture, have a special opportunity to lead the conversation about the best ways to weave the digital into our actual lives – and how we can avoid «technological captivity.»

Ursula Le Guin’s philosophical short story, «The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas», though written in 1973, helps reveal a secret of our current digital age. Le Guin describes a beautiful city wherein peace and order, work and enjoyment are perfectly balanced and perfectly comforting and pleasing to its citizens. But the city has a terrifying secret: the happiness of all requires the misery of a little girl forever locked in a windowless basement.

The digital age is a kind of a Copernican revolution we have subjected ourselves to, a sort of happiness we have agreed to without examining the secret sacrifice involved. What is the equivalent of that child in the digital age: the thing that we sacrifice to be connected digitally? Some say «big data is the new oil of the 21st century.» But when we say «data» we are in fact speaking of humans.

In a digitally driven world the roles of the «customers» and «voters» seem to be understood and treated differently from what they used to be traditionally conceived of. A whole relational aspect of being human, namely, our being-in-relation with others in almost everything we do, think, decide, experience, etc. becomes radically reconfigured. The immense plasticity of the algorithms allows them to cultivate our emotional self in a radical isolation from others and also from factuality and truths. In terms of information about us, the algorithms have it all.

My «digital appearance» and my «digital community» with the help of the algorithms can be construed so much faster than my real «Self.» I can be anybody or anything with any sort of identity. I can define myself as connected and happy.

And yet, loneliness seems to be one of the most rapidly growing and expanding phenomena induced by the digital environments. We often feel communication «hunger» and a longing for an authentic relationship. The digital world offers a rich and easily accessible information and communication menu with an unprecedented outreach that may seemingly serve everybody’s taste except for at least one crucial ingredient often being missed–perhaps our equivalent of the child locked in the basement – (or misused) which is truth itself, the truth of who we are and who we want to be.

The big corporations and political movements need not our true selves but simply our attention and more often than not they get it abundantly from us: more so than ever in a world locked down, with so many of the physical places we used to meet shuttered

We can see what the dividends might be for someone who runs the algorithms and has a «client base» of millions or billions of people. It also shouldn’t be difficult to imagine that a «military spin» could be added on top of all of this–using information to control or conque a population – and this is certainly a part of our Ukrainian experience of withstanding Russian military and hybrid aggression over the last few years.

In the face of this moment, keeping in mind the parable of Ursula Le Guin’s «The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas», I think we each have to ask ourselves some serious questions.

And: What is the thing we are giving up when we wholeheartedly surrender our lives to the amazing and exciting technology around us? We may not get the full answer here without acknowledging that we get hold of our lives by being sacrificial in what we do and how we do it for the others. And if this is so, are we then going to exercise our technological potential to grow both our spirit and practice of solidarity and sacrifice?

And: What is the thing we are giving up when we wholeheartedly surrender our lives to the amazing and exciting technology around us?

These are the questions of our time, maybe of the year 2021. This is why, three years ago, colleagues and I at the Ukrainan Catholic University started the program on Integral Human Development in the Digital Age. We invite you to join our conference February 23-26 to discuss, with smart people from around the world, how we can use technology to enhance rather than control our lives.