Fears that change shape in the darkness have never disappeared throughout human history. The monsters once hidden deep in the forests or the dragons beyond the seas have changed disguises today. Those terrifying figures in mythology did not vanish; they simply moved inside screens in the digital age.
In old myths, the monster was the symbol of the "unknown" and the chaos threatening order. Today, however, new crises brought by the modern world have created new monsters.
The Golem in ancient Jewish mythology was an artificial creature produced from clay and earth by human hands, but it got out of control after a while. Today, artificial intelligence systems running in laboratories and massive servers are exactly reviving this modern Golem legend.
Our deep anxiety that the intelligence we created will surpass us and take away what makes us what we are is actually an updated version of the Frankenstein myth. That digital eye looking at us from behind the screen is nothing more than the reflection in the mirror of the fear we created with our own hands.
In ancient mythologies, there is the Gorgon Medusa, who sees everything, possesses a divine gaze, or casts curses. Anyone who looked into Medusa's eyes would turn to stone.
Today, the invisible networks of the digital age, our smartphones, cameras, and databases, exactly represent that Medusa gaze. That massive surveillance system that watches us every moment, records and predicts our movements, is the new mythological monster turning modern human's freedom area to stone. This invisible monster, fed by our data, has surrounded every corner of our lives.
In old myths, heroes fought monsters in dangerous labyrinths. Today's human struggles with the same monster while walking completely alone among millions of people amidst the concrete buildings of metropolises.
Digital isolation, where everyone is connected in the digital age but no one can truly touch anyone, is the invisible monster of the modern world. This is a modern-day nightmare that consumes a person from the inside out, silently eroding their soul.
In every mythological story, the hero has to face the monster and defeat it. If the monster cannot be destroyed, it is either tamed or a way is found to live with it.
Today, all the modern monsters we encounter from artificial intelligence and technological developments to digital chaos actually tell us one thing: The name of fear has changed, but human's test with the power they created has always remained the same.
The monsters are not outside, but right at the center of this age we wove with our own hands. And the one who will defeat them is once again human's own will.
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