I thought about that and it brought back a few things I have read in the past. One was the Arthur C. Clark book '2001: A Space Odyssey'. One of the main characters was HAL, a computer. HAL stood for Heuristic Algorithmic Computer. Bear in mind the book was in paperback by the time I received it and that was about 1967 when there were few computer companies in the world and less of us using them. The first letter in HAL stands for "hueristic" which means, enabling a human to learn something for himself by aiding in his problem solution. That solution is not guaranteed to be optimal, logical or rational. The second letter is for "algorithmic" which is a series of steps to reach a conclusion. I do not know why the L stood for computer. In the book the space traveler piloting the ship found out the HAL computer, through its artificial intelligence, became less responsive to the pilot's requests. HAL eventually kills the crew except for David Bowman the pilot and later kills Dave but immortalizes him in the ships memory. When I look at cars that drive themselves using algorithmic and heuristic artificial intelligence I feel it is only a matter of time until the computers decide they don't need us and then pull a HAL on us.
As thoughts swirled about in my brain I started thinking about another book I have written about before. That book is George Orwell's '1984' which was written in 1949 and speaks of a world in constant war with the population under complete, continuous government government surveillance. Every moment every person's acts were recorded and when in violation of an arbitrary law they were arrested and sent to re-indoctrination centers. I think we are very close to that now and it is of our own doing. I'm just waiting for the government to feel the need to act on what information it has access to. Most of us here are on Facebook and our posts hand over a very good characterization of who we are and how we think. That data on Facebook is tracked, mined, sold to advertisers and the government can access it too. Google does the same and I notice when I search for something on Google that search shows up as an advertisement on my Facebook home page where I look for things friends have posted. But wait! There's more!
The picture below is an Amazon Alexa. It could just as well be a Google home device. Both are addressed below.
Now with Amazon's Alexa, Google's assistant or Google home those devices not only find things for you on the internet, but they also listen to every word, every noise in the home and that is all recorded and stored in the cloud. They are fun to play with, but present an even bigger potential threat into one's life. The cloud can be hacked and everything there can be used against you. All of these intelligent devices can track you and all of your intimate conversations.
It's long past the year 1984 and the clock is ticking ever closer to total surveillance and possible re-indoctrination. Are you ready for that?
Copyright Bill Weber 2019 and beyond.
As thoughts swirled about in my brain I started thinking about another book I have written about before. That book is George Orwell's '1984' which was written in 1949 and speaks of a world in constant war with the population under complete, continuous government government surveillance. Every moment every person's acts were recorded and when in violation of an arbitrary law they were arrested and sent to re-indoctrination centers. I think we are very close to that now and it is of our own doing. I'm just waiting for the government to feel the need to act on what information it has access to. Most of us here are on Facebook and our posts hand over a very good characterization of who we are and how we think. That data on Facebook is tracked, mined, sold to advertisers and the government can access it too. Google does the same and I notice when I search for something on Google that search shows up as an advertisement on my Facebook home page where I look for things friends have posted. But wait! There's more!
The picture below is an Amazon Alexa. It could just as well be a Google home device. Both are addressed below.
Now with Amazon's Alexa, Google's assistant or Google home those devices not only find things for you on the internet, but they also listen to every word, every noise in the home and that is all recorded and stored in the cloud. They are fun to play with, but present an even bigger potential threat into one's life. The cloud can be hacked and everything there can be used against you. All of these intelligent devices can track you and all of your intimate conversations.
It's long past the year 1984 and the clock is ticking ever closer to total surveillance and possible re-indoctrination. Are you ready for that?
Copyright Bill Weber 2019 and beyond.
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