If you are like me and use the Internet and social media on a regular basis, sometimes we’re just amazed at how Google is so accurate at predicting what it is that we are trying to search for as we are in the process of typing the intended keywords. It’s like Google can read your mind! We’re also quite equally amazed at how the content that appears on our Facebook Newsfeed, even the advertisements seem to match quite well our interests and needs. We are also impressed at how Amazon manages to suggest books that we might like (and indeed would like) to read based on other books that we have read in the past.

Whether it’s Google, Facebook, or Amazon, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) based algorithms by these and other technology companies providing services that help us connect with people, provide us with news and entertainment, and bring to us various advertisements which are all personalised—based on the data that these algorithms collect and process from our use of their (usually) free services.

Modern Internet technology has created for us an entity known as cyberspace. We hear this word often but do not always understand exactly what cyberspace is. Cyberspace is the notional environment in which communication over computer networks takes place. It is a metaphorical space that exists in our minds, especially when we are chatting with friends on social networks and feel as if we are meeting them in a particular space.

While cyberspace is not physical, it is not necessarily virtual (or unreal). As Pope Benedict XVI asserted, “The digital environment is not a parallel or purely virtual world, but is part of the daily experience of many people, especially the young.”