One feels that we stand on the edge of colossal changes in the way we interact with the world.

Advances in AI are changing the idea of “search” from a hunt for sources that can provide the answer to our question, to a bot that simply tells us the answer. Will that change be an improvement, or just another way in which we get “information” from a black box without knowing the biases or conflicts or commercial pressures that influenced the programming of the algorithm that provided the answer?

At the same time that way we source information about the world is changing, changes to the way we perceive the world are also dead ahead. The promise that Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality devices would reach mainstream culture and enhance daily life has been around for more than twenty years, but now seem on the lip of actually coming true. Apple and Meta, among other big players in the space, are bringing new, affordable and intuitive headsets that will offer different ways to perceive “reality.”

All we will need to do is choose.

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Joe Dworetzky is a second career journalist. He practiced law in Philadelphia for more than 35 years, representing private and governmental clients in commercial litigation and insolvency proceedings. Joe served as City Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia under Mayor Ed Rendell and from 2009 to 2013 was one of five members of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission with responsibility for managing the city’s 250 public schools. He moved to San Francisco in 2011 and began writing fiction and pursuing a lifelong interest in editorial cartooning. Joe earned a Master’s in Journalism from Stanford University in 2020. He covers Legal Affairs and writes long form Investigative stories. His occasional cartooning can be seen in Bay Area Sketchbook. Joe encourages readers to email him story ideas and leads at joe.dworetzky@baycitynews.com.