Truth and (Mis)Information in the High-Tech Empires: Case Study: Cosmopolis: a novel, by Don DeLillo

Abstract

Our contemporary time is marked by an endless flow of data that is exchanged between nations, companies, and individuals at a nanosecond timescale. All this data flow, which Katherine Hales calls “information overload”, is facilitated by the spread of computer software and digital devices that have colonized every corner on the globe. Today no secret is hidden; information is available and access to it is getting liberated from the confines of the enclosed files. Entrepreneurs, decision-makers, politicians, researchers and even common people, to mention just a few categories, each has built some kind of a digital fortress that secures its data and transmits only the information that suits its interests to the (digital) world. Yet, high-tech empires are no more than a double-edged weapon that (mis)informs not only consumers and adversaries but also the high-tech owners themselves. While high-technologies have been viewed as a sign of extreme knowledge, power and wealth, they have in fact deprived humans of their natural ‘humanity’ one way or another. More than that, instead of providing absolute knowledge as they are supposed to do, they hide the dark truth and what they really provide is no more than a mere illusion. Taking the example of Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis: a novel, this novel envisages the influence of high-technologies on the contemporary Man and exposes the double facets of the computer and wireless networks. Through the protagonist Eric Packer, DeLillo portrays the digital world from different perspectives and lays bare the inconveniences of high-technologies as they eventually turn out to hide the ‘truth’ instead of revealing it to their owner. Indeed, the protagonist’s blind trust in his high-tech empire was caused by misinformation rather than by objective recognition of the concrete world that surrounds him. In Cosmopolis: a novel the author warns his readers that it is wiser to keep a certain amount of doubt and criticism while dealing with Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality.