Final blog post

 Technology and its evolution have gone up exponentially in the past 20 years. In my own lifetime, I've seen things that were considered science fiction become reality. Virtual reality headsets, 3D printers, Artificial intelligence, facile recognition technology, just to name a few.  From this evolution, our relationship with technology has also changed. Cyberbullying, memes, likes, etc. all either had different meanings or no meaning at all. For example the word “rizz” a word that got its popularity and definition by internet culture and memes. This word got so popular, it won word of the year from Oxford.  The image below shows search statistics for the word “rizz” in the past 5 years.

As we can see, The word was unused up until early 2022. In language, words normally take a very long time to catch on. But with social media, it has expedited this process. You could go up to any person who uses social media frequently who's under the age of 30, and they'll know what rizz means.

With the popularity of the internet and with almost everyone carrying a smartphone. This is the first era in history where most humans have almost all the worlds' information at their fingertips. Any hobby or skill can be learned from the internet. During the Covid-19 lockdown, I picked up several skills. Crocheting, cooking, Dungeons and Dragons and even a some programming languages just to name some of the skills I picked up and still use to this day. Online tutorials have made learning anything just a few clicks away.

The internet has many benefits and there are many examples of the internet helping people, However, Social media and the internet isn't all great. Cyberbullying and revenge porn are unfortunate side effects of the internet. These terms gained mainstream attention after the infamous Amanda Todd suicide. Amanda Todd was a 15-year-old Canadian girl who was blackmailed after she gave nude photographs to someone online. This harassment and cyberbullying led to Amanda uploading a 9-minute video telling her story. This video was her suicide note, and she ended her life on October 10th 2012. The person responsible for her death was arrested and charged, but this is not the only example, and in most cases the person responsible is never caught.

Online scams have become a plague on society, and the need for online literacy has become a requirement to avoid getting scammed. Most people believe scams are targeted towards the older generations, but that's not always the case. One of the most common scams is targeted to generation Z known as “sexploitation” This is what happened to Amanda Todd. Victims are usually tricked into sending nude or explicit photos/videos to a scammer, the scammer will then threaten to release those photos/videos to the public. This is a very effective scam and affects many people. Social media has dark sides to it, Sides we can only avoid if we stay educated on internet safety.

AI has changed the world, and it's only been in the public eye for about a year. Every day, AI technology gets stronger and stronger. AI can be used to help progress science with its ability to help with protein folding simulations and with processing other forms of data. Unfortunately, with such a powerful tool being acceptable to the public and acceptable to sketchy companies. It's not always used ethically. Deepfakes, AI generated voices and images, have been used to misinform the public. AI generated videos are not too far from the horizon and when that happens there is no telling what will happen. Being someone who is considered technologically literate, I can tell the difference between what a human made and what an AI made. But with each update, it gets increasingly harder for me to make that distinction. Think you can tell the difference? The website https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/ is a website that creates faces of people using AI, these images from a glance are indistinguishable from a real photo. 

With technology changing and getting more complicated, if we want to keep up, we must learn, or we will be exploited. It's not just your job to keep technology use ethical but the job of us as a society. Technology is scary, and science fiction has not made it any better. We must make sure we understand technology and its limits. Ethics and politics have always been a heavy topic to speak about, but it is something that must be brought up. People create and control technology, not the other way round.

Blog #10 automation and AI

 The rate at which technology evolves has increased exponentially in the past decade. The consequences have been made apparent by this documentary. AI and self-driving cars 10 years ago were considered science fiction but are now a reality. AI if used properly can further every branch of science and bring us into a new age of science and innovation. But that comes at a cost.

Automation has caused countless people to lose their jobs. In the documentary, we see a factory that used to have hundreds of people working the floor reduced to a handful of people and automated machines. In theory, this should make these goods cheaper but as we’ve seen in recent ages the cost of everything has increased. Also in the documentary, we see former factory workers helping a food bank distribute goods to those who have lost their jobs.

Later in the documentary we see the facial recognition software used in China which brings up the topic of privacy. With AI’s integration with surveillance technology, it has become increasingly easy for governments and corporations to closely monitor people. This technology is not just used in China but around the world. This asks the question: is the safety of our cities worth our privacy?

This documentary reminded me of the dead internet theory. Automation and AI on the internet have created a strange relationship with its users. Dead internet theory is the theory that in the near future(or now) the internet will be full of automated responses that human-made content will be rare and that AI-generated content will make up the majority of what we see online. This can lead to AI’s being stuck in an echo chamber which will cause something known as “model collapse” where AI bets are trained by AI-generated content which will in a sense poison the AI causing the next generation of content will become warped and illegible to humans. 

An example of an AI model collapse article here

Model collapse was also the case in the infamous incident where two Facebook chatbots were made to talk to each other and made up their language so Facebook shut them down. The so-called “language” they created was a very inefficient version of English.

AI is dangerous when used improperly it's up to humanity to ensure that AI is used properly and the dead internet theory stays a conspiracy theory.

EOTO #2 Spiral of silence

The Spiral of silence theory suggests that people naturally hold back opinions to protect themselves socially. The more unpopular the idea or opinion the more likely it is to be self-censored.  

This theory was first coined in 1965 when a group of German researchers along with Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann looked into the political views of German citizens. The election at the time was split between two parties. The researchers thought the votes would be fairly even. The final results showed otherwise with one party winning a much larger margin.

It's only natural for people to want to fit in and with political opinions having such a large factor in what groups a person will fit into, hiding or altering a political opinion to fit in is the most common form we see the spiral of silence manifest as. This theory does not just go for politics. The spiral of silence can apply to any topic or concept. Pineapple on pizza, the smell of gasoline, "Is water wet?", etc. People will alter their public opinions on even the smallest topics just to protect the way others view them. 

Before the age of social media, a person would only have to worry about the people they interact with and the community they are a part of, if they're a celebrity or public figure of some kind they'd have to worry about what was previously mentioned and what was broadcasted about them. Now in the age of social media, every single person is given a platform where anyone can become famous or infamous in minutes.

With the curation algorithms of modern social media, it become incredibly easy for young people to be put down a pipeline to lead to a far-leaning political view. All a person can see on social media is a biased political commentary that drip-feeds beliefs into the user. It becomes increasingly difficult to know what is the "mainstream opinion". With the isolation that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic with access to the public being limited social media was many people's primary source of news and entertainment and the rising divide between the two major political parties in the US. A centrist view was not only rare but frowned upon in American politics.

This video by 60 minutes is very interesting although it doesn't directly mention the spiral of silence it does bring up its core properties. In the video it mentions that the centrist take up the majority of the population but because of the publications made by both the far right and far left.

The spiral of silence is a truly fascinating concept and hasn't gone away since its discovery. However, it has changed quite a lot in the past 10 years as we've seen with the polarization of the political parties in the US. Depending on legislation and changes in culture the spiral of silence will continue to spiral. Although breaking the spiral is possible it is important to note the consequences of speaking up against the "status quo".

Blog post #6 anti war

War is something the everyday citizen fears. No one wants to be in a war, Ever since childhood I've been told WW3 and nuclear annihilation were always just around the corner. I'm not the only one who experienced this.

 Looking back at the past hundred years it's not only obvious but scary to see what wars the US has jumped into. The Korean War, Vietnam, Iran/Iraq. All countries the US invaded/helped a faction in an ongoing war with. Now we see the same thing with Ukraine and Israel. In the nearly 247 years this country has existed it's not been at war for 17 of them. Wars aren't cheap, the US spent over 120 billion dollars on the Vietnam War according to The Veterans History Museum. The US has sent billions of dollars to both Ukraine and Israel. Yes, these countries need help, but our country has problems that need solutions.

 Inflation has increased the price of almost everything, the housing market is a disaster, government corruption/lobbying is at an all-time high, the police in the country are poorly trained, there is a teacher shortage, poor infrastructure, food deserts, the government is 33 trillion dollars in debt, etc. Imagine what the country could be if it put its money into solving its own problems and not the problems of the world.

But why would they? War can increase a country's GDP, can reduce unemployment, and the government can do stuff they normally can't do. Money will go into the accounts of government officials. More money can be spent on military improvements. technology normally improves exponentially during times of war.

But what does this mean to the average citizen? historically speaking, gas prices increase, rationing, and propaganda being presented on every major news outlet. just to name a few. What happens after. Some soldiers come home disabled either physically or mentally. How many homeless people have you seen who are also veterans, that number is probably more than zero. The US would also be billions of dollars more in debt to who knows who.

The US Government loves war, it wouldn't have been in it for 94% of its existence if it hated it. We can vote and protest all we want but with a pattern like this the next war will come and go and history will repeat itself as it has dozens of times before.

Blog post #7

Google started gaining traction due to the order of results it gave during a search. The popular search engine at the time was Yahoo which ordered results based on times the search term was used on a page. Google used a ranking system where each page is ranked by a number of factors, this algorithm constantly changes even today. Early pioneers of Google have become extremely wealthy. The first investor of Google Andy Bechtolsheim invested 100,000 dollars in 1998 now his shares are worth 2.8 million dollars. 

Google is very much part of our daily lives, This morning I was woken up by a Google Home, I had to Google something in class, I checked my Google email and now writing this blog post on a Google-owned website. I've had a computer in the house for as long as I can remember, these computers had Google software has always been a part of my life. Whenever I have a question using Google is my first instinct. I can only wonder how people got information before the use of the internet. 

Off the top of my head, the only people who don't use Google are my grandparents who refuse to use modern technology. Other than that the only people who stereotypically don't use Google are Amish people, the elderly, people with privacy concerns, and people in extremely remote places without access to technology.  As high-speed internet is brought to more and more places Google will be adopted by those people.

With Google being so large there are many pros and cons to this

pros:

1. Google has provided 154,000 jobs to Americans.

2. Google helps millions of people every day with their products. Having so much data accessible to anyone with an internet connection has completely changed the way we get information.

cons:

1. it's a monopoly. Google has no real rivals when it comes to search engines, Although Duckduckgo and Bing are used by some Google having Drive and many other tools available in their browser makes others practically unused by the masses.  

2. With so much data in one company if any data breach occurs millions of users' personal data(banking info, passwords, emails, phone numbers, files) will be compromised.

3. Google is one of the largest companies in the world. estimated to be worth over 1.45 trillion dollars. One entity owning so much wealth is dangerous. They could buy out numerous politicians, lobby government actions, and track the data of government figures.

blogpost 4# Tech Timeline

 

Nov 18th Edit was made to fix the format issue.

"Google it!" is something we've all heard and said but where did it all start and how has it affected our lives? The first search engine was known as Archie founded in 1990. Through the following years, more search engines have come and gone, Yahoo, AOL, etc. The one that became "the search engine" was Google. Google is now used worldwide except for a few countries that banned it. But how did it all start?

According to Google, Google started in 1995 in the dorm rooms of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Three years later in 1998, Google Inc. was founded google later implemented Google Images in 2001, acquired what is now Blogger in 2003, Google Maps in 2005, acquired YouTube in 2006, and from there they keep on growing acquiring more companies like HTC and Nest. As of now, Google is 25 years old. In those 25 years, google has changed the world for the better and the worse. For one Google Drive has made Microsoft 365 obsolete with its cloud storage system. Gmail is now by far the most popular email provider.

But is this a good thing for one company to own so much? Obviously not, although it is useful to have one account for everything. If that account gets compromised it would be better. With Google having such a hold on what we do using smart devices it has a lot more data on us than we think. What did you look up 2 months ago? don't remember? Google knows. It knows everything you've looked up using its engine. How many YouTube videos you've watched, and how many Google docs you've created, if you use Google Maps it knows where you started and ended.

What can we do to protect ourselves from this mass data farming? Truthfully not much. But some small things can reduce the amount of data.

 1: Using a VPN(virtual private network) This protects you information from your ISP(internet service providor). It does this by encrypting your IP address. Overall it protects you but not from everything.

2: Turn off personalized ads. You can do this by going to your Google ad settings. Google will still get your data but it can be assumed it takes less.

3:Using non-Google products. for every Google product, there are multiple alternatives, the Google search engine, Duckduckgo and Bing, Google Maps/Waze, Apple Maps, etc.

4: Unplugging: This is more of a Joke but to have the least amount of your data taken use Google products as little as possible. However, in the modern age, This is almost impossible with most jobs requiring you to have some degree of technological literacy. Not using any form of smart technology is frowned upon and frankly for good reason. Although our data is being farmed by big tech companies there are ways to protect yourself and it is important to know how to use modern tech properly and safely.

Blog post #8

 After watching those TED talks about data privacy I learned some new things but most of the information was stuff  I already knew. This lack of privacy in the modern age is scary, to say the least with the rise of surveillance having a private digital life is near impossible. Even for someone like me who has only posted five things to his Instagram in the past 4 years.

This level of surveillance feels almost Orwellian at times Although there are ways to avoid this surveillance with Imessages encryption, WhatsApps' end to end encryption, Facetime, Duckduckgo, etc we seem to always have the watchful eye of either a private company or a government on us. From the TED talk from Catherina Crump, we learn about automatic license plate readers and how many there are. An example she used was of a man who acquired the pictures that were taken of his car, He got dozens of them the most notable being one that was of him and his children in his own driveway.

This is just an example of how the government has no respect for its people or their privacy as technology evolves we can expect the watchful eye to get stronger and more advanced. If any of these surveillance systems are compromised the data gathered can be used to exploit, blackmail, or target the everyday person. Knowing that files upon files that contain information about me exist, these files that I do not have access to, and can be viewed by unknown parties without my knowledge is not just upsetting but terrifying.

No entity should have such a level of surveillance on innocent people. The government should limit how much data private companies can collect and what kind of data they can collect. Similar restrictions should apply to the government as well. The future is uncertain when it comes to these things because both the digital privacy industry and the surveillance industry are multi-billion dollar industries.

Something I've always said when it comes to digital privacy. "If a company or government wants your information they'll get it" You can protect yourself as much as possible but if an entity wants your information they have the resources to get it. For example, if Google wanted my data specifically they have millions of dollars to spare some of the smartest computer scientists in the world and tech that isn't available to the public. What I use to protect myself and minimize my data collection is, using Apple's messaging system which uses high-level encryption, apple claims they aren't able to see users' texts, and Brave browser which is a free browser that collects less data from users' google and comes with a free-to-use built-in VPN. Most importantly I don't give out any personal information over the phone and I try to do everything in person.