In the Age of AI

After watching the video (In the Age of AI) I cannot help but feel terrified of the possible future. Many of the ideas and topics discussed in this video remind me of the show 'Black Mirror'. Each episode of this show presents a different future where technology rules over humans and controls their lives, and some of the technologies don't seem too far off from reality and what this video presents. 

 

One of the obvious cons to the technology presented in this video is that there is no privacy. People are essentially giving their rights and privacy away to the government and technology companies in exchange for the use of technology, apps, etc. 

 

However, there could be some pros to all of this. Technology and AI such as the kind explained in the video could help keep the general public safe from threats and attacks. But again, that is only possible at the expense of everyone's right to privacy. 

 

I was recently traveling by plane to go to the island of Aruba, and through security and TSA they were implementing all kinds of new technology that was terrifying me. 

 

To first get through the TSA checkpoint, rather than an agent looking at my passport and then my face; there was an iPad-looking device that would scan your face (like shown in the video)(TSA Face ID). I decided to opt out of this. They do not tell you that you can choose to not get your face scanned, so most people walk up and get their face scanned just as the person before did. This is the part that terrified me the most, that no one was saying anything, no one was questioning what it was or why it was implemented. (TSA now wants to scan your face at security. Here are your rights.)

 

Then again when boarding the plane instead of scanning my boarding pass there was the iPad again.  People would walk up to the screen, get their face scanned, and the screen would say "Welcome, seat 13F!". What??

 

 

This technology and AI could recognize faces and connect it to what seat you had reserved on the plane. Again I opted out of this and instead scanned my boarding pass. which took the exact same amount of time as the face-id. No one questioned what was going on or how it was working. 

 

 

In my opinion, it is a complete lie that technology like this is 'more convenient' or 'quicker for the customer'. That is just how they are choosing to market it. This technology enables companies to cut 

costs on employee wages by not needing as many attendants, and for these companies and the government to collect face-id data and use it to better track everyone even outside of airports (ie. cctv cameras).