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Information is everywhere. We live in an unprecedented age when much of the information humanity has amassed over millennia is now readily available at the touch of a button. However, despite this prevalence of information, truth often appears more elusive than ever.

 

Humans have all sorts of cognitive biases that limit our ability to interpret information effectively. One of the most important of these is confirmation bias, where we seek the kind of information that supports the ideas we already hold. Technology can exacerbate this failing as algorithms interpret what we like and then feeds us more of it, resulting in the so-called 'echo chamber'. In a world of fake news, this lop-sided grip on reality may already be undermining democracy.

 

Often it's the pleasure of entertainment that overrides the desire for truth. Image and video content will become ever more manipulable, leaving those with the power to distribute mass-communication able to instantly affect ideas and opinions on a global scale.

 

As we understand human biology and psychology more effectively with ever more potent support from increasingly powerful computers and more sophisticated algorithms, corporations and governments may understand us much better than we understand ourselves.

 

These technologies will soon be embedded within us providing even greater access to our inner world. Our thoughts and desires will not only be more effectively predicted but also potentially engineered. Truth may thus become an increasingly endangered resource, and one that is synthetically constructed as much as it is naturally occurring.