I would like to take another view of the human silicon life. I tend to think that somewhere after 2010, maybe close to 2018 the shift to a computer human world occurred. Computers became dominant during the 2020 shutdown. The world functioned, sort of, with many of the humans isolated at home and on the computer.
The servers did not crash, in fact it was found that there was plenty of reserve in the servers. Servers are the basics of how the world interacts on the intertubes. Addressing and data is on servers. The speed never faltered. Zoom and Teams and other live audio/visual events took place with few minor issues, wear all you clothes when doing an online meeting.
There are no more “yellow pages” of the size and magnitude of when telephones were on copper wires. Now if you want to find a local plumber you need to know how to talk to a database. Example: Maryland Olney plumber sink. Basically it is finding the local yellow page book, turn to plumber pages and look up who does what specialty.
We have several ways of communicating, and tremendously faster, than fifty years ago. Back then the telegram had mostly closed so there was telephone and letter to the postal system. Now we have those two and electronic, email, voice message, text message, and a few more. We can show our lives, either publicly or privately, on social media, to our family and friends or the entire world.
Almost every part of our life now has a computer involved, or has an electronic device with something in it to provide information to a computer. Your phone charger cable, or other cables or charge devices let your phone know what they are and if they are compatible. It is difficult to escape from this, not impossible, just difficult.
The AI stuff is just more of the same, but now easier to encounter. We, software and hardware, have been building to this for generations. Now, it is possible to handle the huge amounts of data, super fast and super cheap. Chat has been this for years, it is just now that the hardware and software can do it fairly well (except when it goes off track and becomes something nasty.
I am constantly trying to reduce my computer contact, but it does not happen. I now have a “smart” thermostat to control the new HVAC (furnace). Set to my room temperature of 74F it might hit it on the way to 77F or 66F. I cannot get it to run around 74F. In the old days you would physically set the on off points on the furnace, the thermostat set at 74F. Smart lets you do that, but it does its own stupid thing. I am thinking of finding an old one from Ebay to put on there and live happily.