The world is undergoing a rapid transformation — in fact, it would be more accurate to say that it is being swept from one transformation into another. With industrialization, all social structures, from education to the economy, were reconfigured.
Cities were rebuilt, migration from rural areas to urban areas increased, and metropolises emerged. Life in cities and metropolises continuously evolved, and with the strengthening of the middle class, it became possible to build relatively more egalitarian societies. The meritocracy system compelled all institutions to undergo restructuring. Education, culture, and the arts, among others, became massified.
The resources allocated to scientific research have increased more than at any other era in history, leading to rapid and dramatic technological transformations. Each technological shift or breaking point has forced all societal institutions — from the labor market to education — to undergo new transformations.
Especially digitalization, mathematical modeling, and ultimately artificial intelligence have been among the main driving forces of this period. With digitalization, the accumulation of data has led to the emergence of Big Data, and through mathematical models, all areas of life are now being extensively and intricately analyzed, optimized, and projected into the future based on this ever-growing data.
There are hardly any fields left untouched by measurement, quantification, and the creation of metrics. In particular, digital social media platforms have restructured — and continue to restructure — the network of social relations.
Digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI), particularly through the widespread adoption of automation, have triggered a new transformation in the labor market. In this process, occupations exposed to automation are gradually disappearing, while new professions are emerging. The strong collaboration between newly created high-skill job positions and elite education has accelerated the decline of the middle class, which had gained significant advantages during the first phase of meritocracy.
During this phase of meritocracy, social classes were roughly grouped into the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor, with the primary inequality occurring between the middle class and the poor. With the spread of automation, in the mutated second phase of meritocracy, the middle class weakened and gravitated toward the poor, forcing society into a polarization between a small number of extremely wealthy individuals and a mass of poor population.
Today, inequalities that were unprecedented in history are spreading and deepening across all areas of life. The current state of AI carries the potential to push this transformation into a very different phase. AI technologies, by further strengthening automation, have the potential to deliver the most devastating blow in finalizing the polarization into a two-class society.
Masses are becoming more vulnerable than ever before to a very small number of increasingly monopolized technology companies. Humanity is now facing extremely difficult challenges. Individuals are living within an ecosystem shaped by technological transformations, one that forces all social institutions — especially the family — into a constant game of reconstruction.
If we fail to understand the dynamics of this ever-evolving ecosystem, it will be impossible for us to intervene, to transform it, or even to resist its effects. Therefore, this book represents an attempt to understand the dynamics of this transformation and the ecosystem we live in, with a particular focus on digitalization and AI.
Some of the writings in this book are based on my previously published newspaper articles, academic papers, book chapters, or revised and combined versions of these earlier works. Given the complexity and difficulty of the subject, this book should be seen as a modest attempt rather than a comprehensive study.
With the hope that this book will be of benefit to those who seek to understand our time and the challenges of modern societies.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to TRT World Research Center for their support during the publication of this book.
Prof. Dr. Mahmut Özer
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