September 7, 2026
THE DAILY McLUHAN DIALOGUES™ • McDialogues™
Understanding the Grammars of Electric Culture and Propaganda Science™
An Exploration of Technology Ecology as an Anchor in a Sea of Change™ and Tactical Training in Counter-Propaganda Science™
by Nelson S. Thall
Former Director/Chief Archivist, Marshall McLuhan Center On Global Communications, Ross, Ca. and McLuhan Media Scientist, Former President/Director, Marshall McLuhan Centre On Global Communications, Toronto, Canada.
WHO IS IN THE CONTROL TOWER OF HUMAN NAVIGATION?
Mankind or AI?
A Graduate Student of Technology asks:
Mr. Thall, if Artificial Intelligence fails as navigator, will mankind possess both the ability and the time to take back the controls of human navigation?
Nelson S. Thall replies:
That depends on whether mankind preserves the ability to navigate for itself, and whether the electric circuit still leaves enough time for human correction. Pre-Babel mankind possessed one language in a non-electric world. At Babel that language was confounded. Much later, first noticed, with the telegraph, mankind extended the central nervous system outward into electric circuitry. As that circuitry was speeded up, electricity created the electric government, and at sufficient speed that government became the control tower of human navigation. The speed-up also caused the surfacing of the collective condition of consciousness that gave rise to Mass Man. That does not mean consciousness itself was extended into the circuit. What was extended was the central nervous system; the collective consciousness was an effect produced among the human beings living inside that electric environment. Mankind initially occupied the control tower and navigated for itself. But as the Great Electric Engineer accelerated the circuit, mankind, the hunter of information, became increasingly dizzy and disorganized trying to keep pace with the speed of information, action, decision-making and rampant technological innovation. Electric communication also progressively overcame the practical separation of languages, technologically retrieving the one-language condition that had been lost at Babel.
The navigational burden therefore produced the need for an assistant capable of operating at the speed of the circuit. But the Private Citadel of Consciousness is not consisting of matter, and consciousness itself cannot be extended into material form. Mankind therefore manufactured its technological semblance, a pseudo conscious machine, through massive computing power, Big Data and high-speed connectivity. Mankind now fabricates his reality. AI speeds decision-making, pushes the slower process of human deliberation toward the margin, and retrieves something very old: the oracle to which mankind turns for guidance before acting. The danger comes with the reversal, when guidance becomes governance. Does mankind still possess the ability to take back the controls? Yes, but only if it continues exercising the human judgment it has extended into the machine rather than allowing that faculty to become completely amputated through disuse. Does mankind still possess the time? That interval is narrowing as the circuitry accelerates. Professor McLuhan's escape from technological inevitability was awareness: mankind can still alter its course so long as it remains willing to perceive what the environment is doing to it. But if navigational decisions are eventually made and acted upon faster than human judgment can intervene, awareness may arrive after the decisive turn has already been taken. But surrendering the helm entirely to the pseudo conscious machine might mean allowing the navigator's instrument to decide the destination.
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Sources: Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964).
All intellectual property contained herein was conceived, originated and authored exclusively by Nelson S. Thall. Artificial intelligence, aka a pseudo-conscious machine (PCM), was not employed. We hired a stenographer. All rights of authorship and ownership vest entirely and exclusively with Nelson S. Thall.
© 2026 Nelson S. Thall. All Rights Reserved.
I can be reached at: nelson@themediumisthemessage.com