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). 

 

#7 Privacy, Online & Off

 These issues are concerning for me because I share so much of my life on the internet and my social media accounts. I have had internet access since I was around 10 years old, and I have had social media access since I was 11. It is terrifying to think that anything I have posted, liked, commented on, watched, or searched is in a data base right now being collected. 

This means somewhere there is years of data on me and my friends and family somewhere. The third Ted Talk speaker explained that many companies such as Apple and Android have installed anti-surveillance software into their devices to prevent the government or hackers from obtaining information. This is hard for me to believe because the phone companies, such as Verizon have access to all of my texts and phone calls.

It would not surprise me if the government had some access to these texts and calls. Having access to this information and data is a complete and unconstitutional overreach by the government. 

There should be laws put in place to protect consumers. As the fourth Ted Talk speaker implied through her story, the internet has been around for years and is rapidly advancing. There should be international internet laws put in place to protect victims like the speaker from digital harassment. 

The Ted Talk that scared me the most was the talk about the automatic license plate reader. It is terrifying to know that local and federal police have access to a database with all of my previous whereabouts. They can use this information to understand where I work, what places I frequent, if I go to Church, etc.

A simple step we can take to protect ourselves from incidents like this is ensuring we are not giving the government more information than necessary. AI and technology has advanced so far and is in every aspect of our lives. While it may be tempting, it is imperative that we do not post so much of our information and lived online to protect ourselves and our loved ones. 

Anti War Voices

 Prior to this course, I was unaware of AntiWar.com and the fight against war. Being a consumer of mainstream media I have not been exposed to the voices advocating for this. 

I believe the reason that we do not hear these anti war voices in mainstream media is due to politics and news sources being controlled/censored. Wars, as awful as they are win countries power and control. The idea of going to war as a country or individual is viewed as brave and patriotic. Most of the United States' citizens are so unfamiliar with the idea of antiwar that they do not even see it as a plausible option. 

The Anti War website definitely gives me a whole new perspective on the United States going to war. Articles that stick out to me most on the website are the "Conflict of Interest" ones. These ones point out corruption within America's government and political or war scandals. 

These articles criticize the government, but not how you would think. In todays political climate, many criticize their opposing political party not the government in total. This website is comfortable criticizing the government from 'both sides'. This is the right and duty that all American citizens have. 

I find it very smart and good for their cause that they have hundreds of authors writing articles and have news blogs and articles every day. This shows their persistence with the issue and shows that it is relevant and there are many events taking place. 

I think that finding these voices and websites are difficult because of censoring. Sites like Google are paid off by the government or politicians to censor any anti war publications. I believe this is done because anti war does not align with their campaigns and their own personal goals. 

EOTO - News Deserts

 News deserts are geographical areas with little to no local and comprehensive news. These areas lack daily or weekly newspapers. These areas exists because newspaper companies in the US are disappearing at a steady rate. 

Newspaper companies are being bought out and run by hedge funds and private equity funds. These owners are using aggressive cost-cutting tactics. These strategies are decreasing the quality and quantity of local newspapers. 

There are many negative effects that follow these news deserts. There is a strong correlation between news deserts and populations below the poverty line. Since companies are producing less quality and quantity newspapers, less people want to subscribe to a newspaper or buy one. While some of these newspaper companies do go digital, not everyone has access to the digital news. Impoverished people and areas do not have unlimited or reliable internet access. 

This means that people in these news deserts are going without correct and current information. Every citizen of the United States has a right and duty to make informed decisions. While local newspapers are disappearing, voting numbers have been decreasing in those impoverished areas. When citizens aren't informed of news, it is easier for corruption in businesses and the government. It is easier for misinformation to spread, especially on social media where information could be false and biased.

Without local newspapers we loose the idea of grass-root democracy. This is the idea of decentralizing the power of the government and giving power back to the people. But people cannot have the power to make decisions when they are uninformed. 

At this rate, two newspaper companies a week disappear. It is a supply and demand issue, less people are using newspapers because there are less being produced. This results in entire geographical areas without local and comprehensive news. 

While many feel this issue does not impact them, it does, even if you have access to a local newspaper, the internet, or any other local and comprehensive news. When we have a large population of the United States that is uninformed and unaware of political, health, and local news, we lose an entire demographic of voters.

There is hope however! Many philanthropists, journalists, and activists are bringing attention to this problem through speeches and articles. 

EOTO - Technology and What I Learned

While listening to my peers present their technology topic, I learned about the origin and impact of different communication technologies. It was interesting to see how technology has changed and how quickly, even in the past fifty years, we have advanced with our technology. 

I learned that emoji is an actual Japanese word and not some made-up word and that the emoji keyboard was not introduced until 2011 and 2013 which I had thought was introduced much earlier in the 2000's. The vinyl record that is used today was invented in the 1930's and again I had believed this model to have been invented much earlier than the 1930's. I had also believed the World Wide Web was invented much sooner than 1994 which is only thirty years ago. 

Similarly, the name Instagram came from instant camera and telegram. Because it combines the idea of a photo with a message. 

I was taught that there is not 'one' inventor of the USB because of patenting issues. Multiple countries were attempting to get patents at the same time. So it is difficult to identify who the one true inventor of the USB was.

I was familiar with the concept of the telegraph but I had never wondered how it worked. I learned that it works by creating breaks in the electrical current using Morse code. Which uses a combination of short and long taps which correlated to a key of the alphabet to be later transferred. 

The name 'Bluetooth' came from King Herald, also known as Bluetooth because of his irregular tooth, who united Denmark and Norway. The inventors of Bluetooth used it to unite different technologies. The symbol for Bluetooth used today is a combination of the Nordic H and Nordic B (Herald Bluetooth). 

EOTO - Carrier Pigeons

For those that are unfamiliar, a carrier pigeon is a homing pigeon that has been bred and trained to fly from point A to point B delivering a message. They would fly with a canister containing a rolled-up message from the sender. But how do they work? How do they know where to go?

It is a lot simpler than one might think. the pigeons are born and raised at a house. They then associate the house/coop with being their home. Pigeons have a natural homing instinct: the desire to return home to where they were raised. They have heightened senses of vision, smell, and hearing, that help them direct their way home. Pigeons have an amazing internal magnetic compass near their eyes and nose. They use this with Earth's magnetic field and the sun's location to direct to a general region. (https://www.historydefined.net/how-carrier-pigeons-work/)

If you wanted someone to be able to send you a message via carrier pigeon, you would send them a pigeon of yours (in a cage by carriage). Whenever they want to send you a message, they will attach a letter to your carrier pigeon and your pigeon will come home. First by finding a general region and then using man-made or natural landmarks to find your specific home. 

Pigeons were first used to relay messages during the Roman Empire. Beters would place their bets and once the race concluded, pigeons would be sent to them with their winning results (776 BC). Strabo, a Greek geographer, made note of messenger pigeons flying across the Mediterranean coastline reporting on the movements of fish (63 BC - 21 AD). 

Carrier pigeons were the better option over horseback or foot letters/mail. Those other methods of messaging had problems with dishonesty, accidents, delays, and lack of confidentiality. The pigeons are the better option because they are docile and easy to deal with, easy to capture and reproduce, reliable, and have a reputation for being great navigators. 

Carrier pigeons were most famously used in the 1800's and war times, specifically in World War I. Tanks were designed with a hole in the side to release a pigeon with a message. Ships would carry pigeons during war and if they were attacked the bird would be released with the coordinates of the ship and often times the crew was able to be saved. 

During the Siege of Paris 1870, 409 pigeons were used. Before switching to messenger pigeons, they would send messages floating down the river in mental containers. This was ineffective because it was unreliable and the messages were being intercepted. Six days after the Siege began, La Ville de Florence (a hot air balloon containing three pigeons and one pilot) sent out three pigeons at eleven in the morning and returned by five in the afternoon which is much faster than the river method. After the war ended months later, four hundred and nine carrier pigeons had been used and 79 had returned safely. These pigeons were facing cold, fatigue, Prussian bullets and falcons that were trained to intercept the pigeons. 

After the telegram was invented, carrier pigeons were used less and less. Today they are almost never used, with a few exceptions. In recent years carrier pigeons have been used in the Middle East to smuggle drugs across borders, bypassing security. There was an instance as recent as March 2023 where a carrier pigeon was used in London to fly drugs into a prison courtyard. Besides these one-off instances, carrier pigeons have been beaten out by modern technology. 

Values of Free Expression

Out of the eight values of free expression, I believe that stable change and protecting dissent are the most important. These two values go hand-in-hand with one another. Stable change is the theory that when people are allowed to speak their minds, they are likely to feel more heard and less likely to use violence as an answer. The citizens of the US should be able to freely speak their minds about political issues and complain about problems they find. This is better for individuals but also for the government. With stable change, the government is able to gauge the feelings of citizens and be cautious of warning signs that people may resort to violence or attacks. 

The second value I find most important is to protect dissent. It is the speech theory that all opinions are protected, especially if it is in the minority. The theory states that every individual has the right and duty to disagree with the government. If everyone just went along with what the government said and the laws that they put in place, the US would no longer be a democracy. We would have a country of people all believing the same exact things, or going along with everything that the person in power says. Criticizing government is where our nation was born, fighting for the rights of the people over the government.

The value of free expression that most resonates with me is the marketplace of ideas or discovery of truth. This theory is the belief that when truth and falsehood are allowed to freely roam together, truth will always prevail. With the US becoming more and more politically polarized by the day and millions of people spreading 'facts' online to prove their beliefs, it is nearly impossible to find the truth. While the truth might not come right out and hit you in the face right away, over the years the truth will prevail. For example, years later we are finding out truths about Covid-19 and what really worked and what did not. The truth always prevails, but it can be hard to see the bigger picture in today's foggy political climate.

In my opinion the most prevalent theory today would have to be individual self-fulfillment or self-actualization. Through this theory, individuals are allowed to express themselves and create their own identity. The majority of the country today is all about autonomy. "You can't tell me what to do". I hear that phrase from all points on the political spectrum. Nobody wants to be told what to do, everyone wants to have their own beliefs, autonomy, and identity. 

Citizens should be able to formulate their own beliefs and express those as they connect to their individual identity. Which is a belief that all eight values of free expression uphold. All of the theories are important and they could not exist without each other nor without the First Ammendment. I believe that it is immperative for every citizen of the US to know and understand their freedoms and know how to use them, otherwise they are useless.