Page 375 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

A L G O R I T H M A N D A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E
information technology. In such an environment, it has become
increasingly difficult for genuine originality to emerge. There is
a pervasive leveling. Can a voice still arise that is truly new?
Technology risks suffocating it.
The relation to time has been disrupted; everything is subject
to constant interruption. Dialogue becomes difficult. One per-
son speaks seriously, another trivializes everything. How can
thought mature in such conditions? The figure of the teacher is
no longer easily discernible, and this is a serious problem.
True teachers cannot easily emerge when everything is dis-
persed into the anonymous mass. Today, even Christ would
struggle to stand as a teacher—His voice would risk being
drowned out. His teaching would be submerged.
We see this even within the Church. In earlier times, one
could look to figures such as Georges Florovsky. But today, where
can a young person be directed? To the internet? It is no longer
easy to identify such figures. Names appear and disappear. This
constant flood of information makes it difficult to concentrate.
Everything overlaps into an eclipse of the unique.
This is reinforced by postmodernity: nothing is stable, noth-
ing enduring—and ultimately, no one remains.
At the root of this technology lies the weakening of time.
Ideas require time. But time is diminished. Everything unfolds
with great rapidity. Whatever is said risks being lost—dissolved
into chaos.
It is as if one were standing in a public square, offering a great
idea among a crowd speaking all at once. What Christ did—as-
cending the mountain to speak—today would disappear within
days. Every voice risks being lost in this noise.
In the past, one awaited the publication of a book. Now—
what book? It appears within the same flow. Where are the theo-
logians today whose books are awaited with longing? There are
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