“Exhilarating and terrifying”

Bowie speaks of a time that is both “exhilarating and terrifying.” He senses that we’ve only scratched the surface, that the Internet’s potential is beyond imagination—for better and for worse.

Sound familiar? Over the past 25 years the Internet has been a source of staggering creativity and information-sharing. Anyone can publish music, start a business, ignite a movement. But it’s also a breeding ground for disinformation, polarization, and manipulation.

When Bowie uses the phrase “exhilarating and terrifying,” he captures the essence of our digital age: a constant oscillation between euphoria and unease. Each breakthrough—from social media to AI—brings both fascination and unforeseen consequences.

The user as co-creator

Another key line from the interview is Bowie’s prediction that “the interplay between the user and the provider will be so in simpatico it’s going to crush our ideas of what mediums are all about.”

Here he describes, long before the term “user-generated content” was common, a future where the boundary between creator and consumer blurs.

That is exactly what we see today: TikTok dances that become global trends overnight, podcasts shaped by listener input, gaming worlds where players build their own realities. The Internet has made us all both audience and artist. Bowie sensed this before most people even realized a blogger could become a cultural force.

A lesson in creative vision

What’s striking isn’t just what Bowie foresaw, but how he saw it. He was a musician, artist, and performer—not a technician. Yet he possessed a lifelong talent for reading culture’s undercurrents. From glam rock to the Berlin electronic experiments, he always knew when a shift was coming.

His perspective on the Internet reminds us that true creativity often means spotting connections others miss. Bowie recognized that technology is not just machines and cables, but culture, identity, and power.

At a time when many dismissed the web as a fad for geeks, he read between the lines and sensed that something far bigger was taking shape.

The AI connection

Did Bowie explicitly talk about AI? No. But when he describes the Internet as a “living alien life form,” it feels almost prophetic about artificial intelligence.

Generative AI—capable of writing, composing, and creating images—wouldn’t exist without the Internet’s data and neural pathways. AI is, in a sense, the next step in that evolution: technology that doesn’t merely distribute our content but creates its own.

Today, when we speak of AI as a “black box” with unpredictable results, Bowie’s warning that we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg resonates. He foresaw that we would confront something challenging our very notions of what a medium—and perhaps a human—can be.

Between control and chaos

Bowie was no naïve tech optimist. He was as much poet as futurist, with a taste for darkness. He saw the potential for creative liberation but also the risk of losing control.

Now, as we grapple with algorithmic bias, surveillance capitalism, and addictive design, his words feel even more relevant. The Internet is no longer just a network of people but of interests, data, and automated decisions.

It’s easy to forget that this is precisely what Bowie hinted at: something “exhilarating and terrifying,” transforming not only how we communicate but the conditions of our freedom.

Lessons for us today

What does this mean for those of us living inside the future Bowie sketched? Three things stand out:

1. Curiosity as compass
   Bowie was endlessly curious. He didn’t let fear of technology hold him back; he explored it with an open mind. We need that same attitude when we face AI, blockchain, or the next big leap.

2. Critical perspective
   At the same time, he wasn’t blind to risks. His “alien life form” is as much a warning as a celebration. We must keep asking: Who controls the technology? Who profits? What is it doing to our societies?

3. Creativity as counterforce
   Bowie’s life proves that art and culture give us language to understand the new. When the world feels incomprehensible, we need artists and storytellers to reveal the human dimension behind the code.

An echo from the future

Watching the interview today, I’m struck by how little it’s really about technology. It’s about humanity. Bowie talks about imagination, freedom, and responsibility. He reminds us that every technological leap is also an existential leap.

We can see the Internet—and AI—as something that takes power from us. Or we can, like Bowie, see it as an “alien life form” we can dance with, explore, even love, while remembering it can never be fully tamed.

Epilogue: Ziggy on the Web

Perhaps it’s fitting that David Bowie—who invented the alien persona of Ziggy Stardust—was the one to describe the Internet as a strange new being. He lived his life as a bridge between worlds: music and art, human and cosmic, analog and digital.

When he laughs and says, “It’s just landed here,” I don’t just hear a comment on the Internet in 1999. I hear a reminder that the future always arrives sooner than we expect—and that we, like Bowie, must meet it with wonder and a healthy dose of respect.

Conclusion
David Bowie’s words from 1999 are more than a cool anecdote. They are a map of our present: a world where the line between human and machine, creator and consumer, reality and fiction grows ever blurrier.

We still stand, as he said, “on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying.” The question isn’t whether he was right—he was—but what we choose to do with that insight.