“Have you got young children around you? They can sort it out quite easily”, the customer service man asked in a frustrated tone. “No, I haven’t”, I answered abruptly. “If so, we’ll send you an engineer. Let’s see what I can do. One’s available in three weeks time”, the man just said plainly. “Eh? Three weeks?” Blimey! I cannot be out of Internet for that long!”, I sighed dejectedly. And it is frustrating, having  to wait in all day as the  engineer will turn up at any time.

 

It was my broadband that had stopped working and I phoned the telecommunications company to get some help. The man said it was a simple problem and began to instruct me what to do and I tried to follow. But it kept going wrong as my old eyes didn’t detect the right button quickly enough that made me panic. He clearly noticed I was an old school and asked if I had young children who could help.

 

In this digital era, the IT/AI gadgets are obviously the entertainer like toys to the children whereas it is a science fiction to old folks like me. It in fact isn’t just me who suffer from the modern technology but most of my friends who are too, elderly face the same problem. They said they’d just leave their business dealings with their children after giving them up because of the technical complications that they couldn’t handle anymore. Thus, the technology keeps changing in every single minute and even IT/AI experts have to keep updating their skills all the time.
 

Let alone WiFi that is a high tech but even a making a phone call to any organisation or company too, is nightmarish these days. When dialled, the machine guides to press what number to what type of question that was preset by them. The questions are getting more obscured and diversified with new terms and words of the firms/ organisations. Most of them are even irrelevant to my query and the instruction won’t elaborate. If I hesitate a bit in selecting the number, either the call is cut off or I have to listen to from the start all over again. It is like a pure interrogation and they don’t have any empathy with the customers like me whatsoever. It’s so exhausting/ frustrating to deal with making a simple telephone call these days and that’s quite enough doing my head in.

 

I’m getting more convinced everyday that it is a new way of getting rid of old generation, a new form of euthanasia. This high tech is far from being helpful tool to old generation and it's sheer complexity is possibly turning into the right cause of death by shock/stress.

 

This uneasy subject of euthanasia has been surfaced up worldwide at times for the last few decades but is succumbed to strong oppositions who are unwilling to pass into law. They argue that it is immoral or against God’s will because Bible says that it’s a sin to take one’s life away.
 

Still, Netherlands cut through the red tape by legalising it in 2002 and a handful of other countries have been following suit quietly such as Switzerland and Australia etc. Very recently, former Dutch Prime Minister, Dries van Agt and his wife (both were 93 years old) died by duo euthanasia, holding each other's hands that has rippled in the sound network.

 

It certainly is illegal in Britain that pushes some people with serious illnesses to make a journey to Switzerland to go through when reached at the end of their tether. Then the people who accompanied the patient often be prosecuted when returned home for assisting in the suicide of another person. Although it’s getting more lenient to punish the accompanies but still is a long way to go as many countries still are reluctant to allow it.

 

I personally reckon that most countries comprehend the importance of it but try to save grace/ image of their countries lest they are seen as bad guys and Godless with immorality.

 

Therefore, the death of elderly people by the stress from IT/AI is a very convenient and blameless way of euthanasia as it looks like a natural death to anyone. Nevertheless, euthanasia is a painless ending whereas IT/AI tech maximises one’s stress that results in the death. It’s in fact a substitution of euthanasia but in more cruel way.

 

However, we’ve just taken off a baby step in the digital tech and are already experiencing this amount of social pressure. Hence, our unseen/ unpredictable future seems to be very bleak with the continuation of high tech which is getting more and more sophisticated. The time when IT/AI finally becomes in charge of us in planning, programming and operating that will rule out the interference of human influence, our fate will be under the control of IT/AI. It means that the humans will be in the colony of machine entirely or died out eventually.

 

Many of the science fiction movies of the past have become part of our lives. About two decades ago, we entertained ourselves by watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie ‘Terminator’. It depicts the destruction of mankind when humanoid AI robots take over and annihilate us entire human race. Some scientists argue that there need to be some restrictions in developing AI tech due to the probability of Terminator effect. The others insist we should continue it with monitoring to certain measurement.

 

Whichever the argument lies, it seems to be unstoppable as it is in the progress even at this very moment and nobody can be certain of the outcome. The most terrifying scenario is that the rogue countries which have no human right/ value are upheld, have reached the stage of achievement of AI completion. Currently, as a matter of fact, these countries are the most enthusiastic developers of it that could possibly be used as methods of warfare. Alas, God only knows!