Claps on the title alone! :)

Totally agree. I'm old enough to have seen the rise of true "Big Tech" and can honestly say that life was very certainly no worse before all these so-called benefits came into being. I also don't think it's anywhere near as simple as a "force for good". I think it's a very complicated, and at any rate unavoidable, consequence of human curiosity that needs checks and balances like all human inventions. I've heard some truly inspiring stories of AI discovering revolutionary new materials, drugs, and chemicals that could be huge wins for humanity. And of course I'm all-to-aware of the other side of rife copyright exploitation, fake news, fabricated "research", and so on. And obviously we all could do without social media tomorrow; that's a no-brainer.