How the Future will be Impacted by Burgeoning Technological
Advances
Technology is the hottest topic of the century for good
reason; all aspects of daily life is being influenced by technology, with
alleged goals to make the world more efficient or safer. The introduction of cookies on websites
appears to be the beginning of such tracking. Cookies would try to determine
what an internet user wanted to buy and offer the best deals that they had.
Although there was pushback, people started to realize that google also started
to track users, but no one seemed to care. Recently tracking individuals for
data has evolved immensely. The article “The Tech That Will Invade Our Lives in
2020”, explains how the smart houses are coming into view as a viable lifestyle.
It explains that many of the large tech companies, apple, google, Samsung, etc.
have come together, to try to synthesize products. These products are all
interconnected in a single database. These products, namely Alexa, Siri, and
Google Assistants, will be part of every home and will control it. Many also
question the legality of monumental companies colluding but with that aside the
issue pressing is that in most if not all homes, devices are listening and
recording. In the near future, these homes will be autonomous and mold to the
desires of the inhabitants. Although there is nothing outright devious going on
it is still interesting that more and more information about each individual is
tracked and stored in a warehouse somewhere. Another tracker that is attached
all day long is the apple watch and its various competitors. These take blood
pressure constantly and track heartbeats as well as location. It is clear to
see that soon these watches will be able to do much more than record and track.
The idea that everyone is being tracked becomes further
entrenched when it comes to cars. According to the article, “What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to
find out.” All new cars track the whereabouts of the driver, the speeds they drive,
the acceleration, stopping speed and hundreds if not thousands of other details.
This info is also put into a database and analyzed to allegedly make the car
safer. Although it is a very viable option, it is hard not to ponder the amount
of sensors on the car. Fowler, the author, claims that there are thousands of
sensors on his 2017 Chevrolet, why are so many needed some may ask.
Furthermore, when someone connects their phone to a car, a large amount of
personal data is accessible to the car. Essentially, everyone is being tracked
or listened to.
These two articles illuminate the
very simple idea that we apparently are not worried about tech companies
tracking our every movement. I personally am like everyone else, I do not care as
of now. It is very possible that one day, the information will be leaked and
people will have their personal information and most likely, their identity
stolen. Finally, although, this has been a negative paper written by myself,
this data does have many upsides that are relatively unknown. The data piles
are basically like discovering a new element, scientist won’t know what to with
it but eventually usefulness will come out of it. For example, breast cancer
has been spotted by AWS before doctors can. Heart attacks can be tracked by accessories
and then 911 can be called for the elderly. So having people storing data is
scary but may prove instrumental to progress and will also be very dangerous.
Fowler, Julie. “What does your car know about
you? We hacked a Chevy to find out.” Evernote,
8 Nov. 2019, www.evernote.com/pub/aengineer/ae-510?linked=8d6edc4c-9623-4645-9d36-b057ad589798&newReg=false#st=p&x=future&n=0e18e88a-862b-42f9-b28a-e5419939c919.
Amanda
I am very intrigued by the amount of people that are at risk
of losing their job to robots, hopefully I am not one of them. I always wonder
however, what will that unemployed person do? Because there has to be a job
somewhere they can do. Also do you think that this many jobs will be taken
quickly or slowly? Because the us, china, and india have billions of people, it
could take a while. I also never would have guessed that hobbyists are being
challenged by 3d printing , I found that amusing.
Varsha
I wrote on a very similar topic and although I agree with
you that the big tech companies are very coy with their advertising, they have
yet to do any harm and could in fact help in the long run. With lots of data do
you believe that trends could be found that a human would never think of or is
unable to perceive simply based on bias alone?
Isabel
3D printing is very valuable and it appears that can be used
in many ways. This blog interests me a lot because the idea of printing metals
is otherworldly. But this seems very inappropriate because printing stuff takes
a large amount of time and is liable for mistakes and failures. Also multiple
printers need to be purchased in order to make multiple parts. Finally this
alloy that is very efficient will most likely be modified some way because,
there is always another more efficient material in aerospace, making the
printer useless. It's a cool idea though.
3 comments:
Dane,
I did my blog post on a related note to yours, since I think the topic of how much privacy we actually have in everyday life is an interesting one to consider. We are living in an increasingly interconnected world where people (including myself) seem to trade private information about our lives for smart tech and ease of living. Devices like the Apple watch and Alexa make our lives so much easier by organizing our schedules, providing reminders, and tracking our health. Although we are aware that analyzing collected data on us is what makes tech predictive and smarter, I wonder how much farther we would be willing to go for the sake of having smart devices and AI.
I am so glad that you addressed this topic! The privacy concerns regarding technological advancements and company involvement has really become a hot topic within the past few years. I like how you highlighted that cookies on websites were introduced as a seemingly simply solution to optimize user interaction, but has developed into something much larger and invasive. I think sometimes people underestimate the impacts future iterations technology can have because they get to stuck only on its current functionality. I also found the idea that just the sensors in cars are so easily hackable and tell a lot about a person and their whereabouts; technology can be used as both a helpful tool and a destructive weapon and your post has highlighted that clearly.
Dane,
I, like many others, don't really think about all the information I am sharing with large tech companies like Apple, Amazon, or Google, but become uncomfortable when I think about it. From banking, to location, to personal preferences, if someone were able to hack into any of those three companies, they would pretty much know all there is to know about me. I don't know at what point we will choose personal safety over the convenience these companies provide. I will personally probably continue to trust this until my data is breached, and my information is compromised.
Post a Comment