Been thinking about this a lot lately. Are we actually heading toward one massive centralized system, like one giant AI or one giant computer basically running everything, our data, our apps, our decisions? Or is it going the other way, everyone running their own stuff, no single point of control?
The centralized version is basically every dystopian movie’s nightmare. Think Matrix, but less “machines farming humans” and more like one AI quietly running infrastructure, finance, info, everything, and everyone’s just plugged into it somehow. Or Minority Report, glass screens everywhere, transparent tech, everyone constantly interfacing with some central system just to get through the day. Person of Interest too, one AI (or two competing ones) quietly watching and deciding stuff without people even realizing how deep it goes.
Then theres the decentralized side, which movies don’t really glorify as much honestly. Kinda see shades of it in Ready Player One, I mean the OASIS itself is centralized but how people build their own rigs and own little setups feels more individual. Or just real world stuff, blockchain, mesh networks, people self hosting instead of relying on “the cloud” which lets be real is just someone elses centralized computer anyway.
So which way you think we’re actually going? One big system everyone taps into (efficient but kinda terrifying if it goes wrong) or everyone with their own disconnected setup (more freedom but messier, harder to coordinate)?
Curious what yall think, and if you got better movie/show refs for either side drop them, feel like decentralized dystopia doesn’t get shown much in film. Am I the only one thinking this way???