the downsides of how people use tech

Why should anyone believe Facebook anymore? [Vogelstein]

On 12/27/2018, in business, corporate / business world, data related items, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, Google, hearts -- matters of the heart, morals/values, parents/guardians, platforms, society, student-related, technologies for your home, the downsides of how people use tech, United States, vendors, youth, by Daniel Christian

Why should anyone believe Facebook anymore? — from wired.com by Fred Vogelstein

Excerpt:

Just since the end of September, Facebook announced the biggest security breach in its history, affecting more than 30 million accounts. Meanwhile, investigations in November revealed that, among other things, the company had hired a Washington firm to spread its own brand of misinformation on other platforms, including borderline anti-Semitic stories about financier George Soros. Just two weeks ago, a cache of internal emails dating back to 2012 revealed that at times Facebook thought a lot more about how to make money off users’ data than about how to protect it.

Now, according to a New York Times investigation into Facebook’s data practices published Tuesday, long after Facebook said it had taken steps to protect user data from the kinds of leakages that made Cambridge Analytica possible, the company continued to sustain special, undisclosed data-sharing arrangements with more than 150 companies—some into this year. Unlike with Cambridge Analytica, the Times says, Facebook provided access to its users’ data knowingly and on a greater scale.

What has enabled them to deliver these apologies, year after year, was that these sycophantic monologues were always true enough to be believable. The Times’ story calls into question every one of those apologies—especially the ones issued this year.

…

There’s a simple takeaway from all this, and it’s not a pretty one: Facebook is either a mendacious, arrogant corporation in the mold of a 1980s-style Wall Street firm, or it is a company in much more disarray than it has been letting on.

…

It’s hard to process this without finally realizing what it is that’s made us so angry with Silicon Valley, and Facebook in particular, in 2018: We feel lied to, like these companies are playing us, their users, for chumps, and they’re also laughing at us for being so naive.

Also related/see:

‘We’ve hit an inflection point’: Big Tech failed big-time in 2018 — from finance.yahoo.com by JP Mangalindan

Excerpt:

2018 will be remembered as the year the public’s big soft-hearted love affair with Big Tech came to a screeching halt.

For years, lawmakers and the public let massive companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon run largely unchecked. Billions of people handed them their data — photos, locations, and other status-rich updates — with little scrutiny or question. Then came revelations around several high-profile data breaches from Facebook: a back-to-back series of rude awakenings that taught casual web-surfing, smartphone-toting citizens that uploading their data into the digital ether could have consequences. Google reignited the conversation around sexual harassment, spurring thousands of employees to walk out, while Facebook reminded some corners of the U.S. that racial bias, even in supposedly egalitarian Silicon Valley, remained alive and well. And Amazon courted well over 200 U.S. cities in its gaudy and protracted search for a second headquarters.

“I think 2018 was the year that people really called tech companies on the carpet about the way that they’ve been behaving conducting their business,” explained Susan Etlinger, an analyst at the San Francisco-based Altimeter Group. “We’ve hit an inflection point where people no longer feel comfortable with the ways businesses are conducting themselves. At the same time, we’re also at a point, historically, where there’s just so much more willingness to call out businesses and institutions on bigotry, racism, sexism and other kinds of bias.”

The public’s love affair with Facebook hit its first major rough patch in 2016 when Russian trolls attempted to meddle with the 2016 U.S. presidential election using the social media platform. But it was the Cambridge Analytica controversy that may go down in internet history as the start of a series of back-to-back, bruising controversies for the social network, which for years, served as the Silicon Valley poster child of the nouveau American Dream.

Google Glass wasn’t a failure. It raised crucial concerns. — from wired.com by Rose Eveleth

Excerpts:

So when Google ultimately retired Glass, it was in reaction to an important act of line drawing. It was an admission of defeat not by design, but by culture.

These kinds of skirmishes on the front lines of surveillance might seem inconsequential — but they can not only change the behavior of tech giants like Google, they can also change how we’re protected under the law. Each time we invite another device into our lives, we open up a legal conversation over how that device’s capabilities change our right to privacy. To understand why, we have to get wonky for a bit, but it’s worth it, I promise.

But where many people see Google Glass as a cautionary tale about tech adoption failure, I see a wild success. Not for Google of course, but for the rest of us. Google Glass is a story about human beings setting boundaries and pushing back against surveillance…

IN THE UNITED States, the laws that dictate when you can and cannot record someone have a several layers. But most of these laws were written when smartphones and digital home assistants weren’t even a glimmer in Google’s eye. As a result, they are mostly concerned with issues of government surveillance, not individuals surveilling each other or companies surveilling their customers. Which means that as cameras and microphones creep further into our everyday lives, there are more and more legal gray zones.

From DSC:
We need to be aware of the emerging technologies around us. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. People need to be aware of — and involved with — which emerging technologies get rolled out (or not) and/or which features are beneficial to roll out (or not).

One of the things that’s beginning to alarm me these days is how the United States has turned over the keys to the Maserati — i.e., think an expensive, powerful thing — to youth who lack the life experiences to know how to handle such power and, often, the proper respect for such power. Many of these youthful members of our society don’t own the responsibility for the positive and negative influences and impacts that such powerful technologies can have.

If you owned the car below, would you turn the keys of this ~$137,000+ car over to your 16-25 year old? Yet that’s what America has been doing for years. And, in some areas, we’re now paying the price.

The corporate world continues to discard the hard-earned experience that age brings…as they shove older people out of the workforce. (I hesitate to use the word wisdom…but in some cases, that’s also relevant/involved here.) Then we, as a society, sit back and wonder how did we get to this place?

Even technologists and programmers in their 20’s and 30’s are beginning to step back and ask…WHY did we develop this application or that feature? Was it — is it — good for society? Is it beneficial? Or should it be tabled or revised into something else?

Below is but one example — though I don’t mean to pick on Microsoft, as they likely have more older workers than the Facebooks, Googles, or Amazons of the world. I fully realize that all of these companies have some older employees. But the youth-oriented culture in American today has almost become an obsession — and not just in the tech world. Turn on the TV, check out the new releases on Netflix, go see a movie in a theater, listen to the radio, cast but a glance at the magazines in the check out lines, etc. and you’ll instantly know what I mean.

In the workplace, there appears to be a bias against older employees as being less innovative or tech-savvy — such a perspective is often completely incorrect. Go check out LinkedIn for items re: age discrimination…it’s a very real thing. But many of us over the age of 30 know this to be true if we’ve lost a job in the last decade or two and have tried to get a job that involves technology.

Microsoft argues facial-recognition tech could violate your rights — from finance.yahoo.com by Rob Pegoraro

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union provided a good reason for us to think carefully about the evolution of facial-recognition technology. In a study, the group used Amazon’s (AMZN) Rekognition service to compare portraits of members of Congress to 25,000 arrest mugshots. The result: 28 members were mistakenly matched with 28 suspects.

The ACLU isn’t the only group raising the alarm about the technology. Earlier this month, Microsoft (MSFT) president Brad Smith posted an unusual plea on the company’s blog asking that the development of facial-recognition systems not be left up to tech companies.

Saying that the tech “raises issues that go to the heart of fundamental human rights protections like privacy and freedom of expression,” Smith called for “a government initiative to regulate the proper use of facial recognition technology, informed first by a bipartisan and expert commission.”

But we may not get new laws anytime soon.

Just because we can…

Addendum on 12/27/18: — also related/see:

‘We’ve hit an inflection point’: Big Tech failed big-time in 2018 — from finance.yahoo.com by JP Mangalindan

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

2018 will be remembered as the year the public’s big soft-hearted love affair with Big Tech came to a screeching halt.

For years, lawmakers and the public let massive companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon run largely unchecked. Billions of people handed them their data — photos, locations, and other status-rich updates — with little scrutiny or question. Then came revelations around several high-profile data breaches from Facebook: a back-to-back series of rude awakenings that taught casual web-surfing, smartphone-toting citizens that uploading their data into the digital ether could have consequences. Google reignited the conversation around sexual harassment, spurring thousands of employees to walk out, while Facebook reminded some corners of the U.S. that racial bias, even in supposedly egalitarian Silicon Valley, remained alive and well. And Amazon courted well over 200 U.S. cities in its gaudy and protracted search for a second headquarters.

“I think 2018 was the year that people really called tech companies on the carpet about the way that they’ve been behaving conducting their business,” explained Susan Etlinger, an analyst at the San Francisco-based Altimeter Group. “We’ve hit an inflection point where people no longer feel comfortable with the ways businesses are conducting themselves. At the same time, we’re also at a point, historically, where there’s just so much more willingness to call out businesses and institutions on bigotry, racism, sexism and other kinds of bias.”

The public’s love affair with Facebook hit its first major rough patch in 2016 when Russian trolls attempted to meddle with the 2016 U.S. presidential election using the social media platform. But it was the Cambridge Analytica controversy that may go down in internet history as the start of a series of back-to-back, bruising controversies for the social network, which for years, served as the Silicon Valley poster child of the nouveau American Dream.

AI Now Report 2018: 10 Recommendations for AI [AI Now Institute]

On 12/07/2018, in 21st century, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, internet, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, morals/values, pace of change, platforms, programming, society, sociology, surviving, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

AI Now Report 2018 | December 2018 — from ainowinstitute.org

Meredith Whittaker , AI Now Institute, New York University, Google Open Research
Kate Crawford , AI Now Institute, New York University, Microsoft Research
Roel Dobbe , AI Now Institute, New York University
Genevieve Fried , AI Now Institute, New York University
Elizabeth Kaziunas , AI Now Institute, New York University
Varoon Mathur , AI Now Institute, New York University
Sarah Myers West , AI Now Institute, New York University
Rashida Richardson , AI Now Institute, New York University
Jason Schultz , AI Now Institute, New York University School of Law
Oscar Schwartz , AI Now Institute, New York University

With research assistance from Alex Campolo and Gretchen Krueger (AI Now Institute, New York University)

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Building on our 2016 and 2017 reports, the AI Now 2018 Report contends with this central problem, and provides 10 practical recommendations that can help create accountability frameworks capable of governing these powerful technologies.

Governments need to regulate AI by expanding the powers of sector-specific agencies to oversee, audit, and monitor these technologies by domain.
Facial recognition and affect recognition need stringent regulation to protect the public interest.
The AI industry urgently needs new approaches to governance. As this report demonstrates, internal governance structures at most technology companies are failing to ensure accountability for AI systems.
AI companies should waive trade secrecy and other legal claims that stand in the way of accountability in the public sector.
Technology companies should provide protections for conscientious objectors, employee organizing, and ethical whistleblowers.
Consumer protection agencies should apply “truth-in-advertising” laws to AI products and services.
Technology companies must go beyond the “pipeline model” and commit to addressing the practices of exclusion and discrimination in their workplaces.
Fairness, accountability, and transparency in AI require a detailed account of the “full stack supply chain.”
More funding and support are needed for litigation, labor organizing, and community participation on AI accountability issues.
University AI programs should expand beyond computer science and engineering disciplines. AI began as an interdisciplinary field, but over the decades has narrowed to become a technical discipline. With the increasing application of AI systems to social domains, it needs to expand its disciplinary orientation. That means centering forms of expertise from the social and humanistic disciplines. AI efforts that genuinely wish to address social implications cannot stay solely within computer science and engineering departments, where faculty and students are not trained to research the social world. Expanding the disciplinary orientation of AI research will ensure deeper attention to social contexts, and more focus on potential hazards when these systems are applied to human populations.

Also see:

After a Year of Tech Scandals, Our 10 Recommendations for AI — from medium.com by the AI Now Institute
Let’s begin with better regulation, protecting workers, and applying “truth in advertising” rules to AI

Also see:

Excerpt:

As we discussed, this technology brings important and even exciting societal benefits but also the potential for abuse. We noted the need for broader study and discussion of these issues. In the ensuing months, we’ve been pursuing these issues further, talking with technologists, companies, civil society groups, academics and public officials around the world. We’ve learned more and tested new ideas. Based on this work, we believe it’s important to move beyond study and discussion. The time for action has arrived.

We believe it’s important for governments in 2019 to start adopting laws to regulate this technology. The facial recognition genie, so to speak, is just emerging from the bottle. Unless we act, we risk waking up five years from now to find that facial recognition services have spread in ways that exacerbate societal issues. By that time, these challenges will be much more difficult to bottle back up.

In particular, we don’t believe that the world will be best served by a commercial race to the bottom, with tech companies forced to choose between social responsibility and market success. We believe that the only way to protect against this race to the bottom is to build a floor of responsibility that supports healthy market competition. And a solid floor requires that we ensure that this technology, and the organizations that develop and use it, are governed by the rule of law.

From DSC:
This is a major heads up to the American Bar Association (ABA), law schools, governments, legislatures around the country, the courts, the corporate world, as well as for colleges, universities, and community colleges. The pace of emerging technologies is much faster than society’s ability to deal with them!

The ABA and law schools need to majorly pick up their pace — for the benefit of all within our society.

The Insecurity of Things: a Brief History of US IoT Cybersecurity Legislation [Lawrence]

On 11/29/2018, in 21st century, emerging technologies, history, internet, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, machine-to-machine communications, platforms, society, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, by Daniel Christian

The Insecurity of Things: a Brief History of US IoT Cybersecurity Legislation (Part 2) — from zone.com by Cate Lawrence
Check out these national attempts to legislate IoT security.

Excerpt:

There’s been a number of efforts over the last few years to legislate or provide a legal response to matters of cybersecurity. Part 1 of this article takes a look at recent efforts by California. This article examines the national attempts to legislate these poorly secured connected devices.

EXCLUSIVE: Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies [Regalado]

On 11/26/2018, in 21st century, Asia, biology, research, science, society, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, by Daniel Christian

EXCLUSIVE: Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies — from technologyreview.com by Antonio Regalado
A daring effort is under way to create the first children whose DNA has been tailored using gene editing.

Excerpt:

When Chinese researchers first edited the genes of a human embryo in a lab dish in 2015, it sparked global outcry and pleas from scientists not to make a baby using the technology, at least for the present.

It was the invention of a powerful gene-editing tool, CRISPR, which is cheap and easy to deploy, that made the birth of humans genetically modified in an in vitro fertilization (IVF) center a theoretical possibility.

Now, it appears it may already be happening.

Where some see a new form of medicine that eliminates genetic disease, others see a slippery slope to enhancements, designer babies, and a new form of eugenics.

Global IoT technology market to reach $318 billion by 2023, says GlobalData [which-50.com]

On 11/23/2018, in 21st century, Australia, emerging technologies, global / globalization, internet, machine-to-machine communications, society, the downsides of how people use tech, by Daniel Christian

Global IoT technology market to reach $318 billion by 2023, says GlobalData — from which-50.com

Excerpt:

The global market for Internet of Things (IoT) technology, which consists of software, services, connectivity, and devices, reached $130 billion in 2018, and is projected to reach $318 billion by 2023, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20 per cent, according to GlobalData.

GlobalData forecasts show that solutions for government, utilities and manufacturing dominate the market, with a total of 58 per cent of the opportunity in 2018 and a slighter smaller 55 per cent of the market in 2023, as others such as travel and leisure and retail grow their respective shares. Energy and transportation are other major verticals, with a combined 15 per cent of the market in both 2018 and 2023.

Also see:

As digital technology pervades the utility industry so too does the risk of cyber attacks — from by which-50.com by Joseph Brookes
Excerpt:
Smart metres and IoT have the potential to optimise performance and maintenance of the billions of dollars worth of infrastructure in Australian utilities. But each new device creates a potential access point to systems that are not designed with cyber security in mind and, in some cases, are already exposed.

Mama Mia It’s Sophia: A Show Robot Or Dangerous Platform To Mislead? — from forbes.com by Noel Sharkey

Excerpts:

A collective eyebrow was raised by the AI and robotics community when the robot Sophia was given Saudia citizenship in 2017 The AI sharks were already circling as Sophia’s fame spread with worldwide media attention. Were they just jealous buzz-kills or is something deeper going on? Sophia has gripped the public imagination with its interesting and fun appearances on TV and on high-profile conference platforms.

Sophia is not the first show robot to attain celebrity status. Yet accusations of hype and deception have proliferated about the misrepresentation of AI to public and policymakers alike. In an AI-hungry world where decisions about the application of the technologies will impact significantly on our lives, Sophia’s creators may have crossed a line. What might the negative consequences be? To get answers, we need to place Sophia in the context of earlier show robots.

A dangerous path for our rights and security
For me, the biggest problem with the hype surrounding Sophia is that we have entered a critical moment in the history of AI where informed decisions need to be made. AI is sweeping through the business world and being delegated decisions that impact significantly on peoples lives from mortgage and loan applications to job interviews, to prison sentences and bail guidance, to transport and delivery services to medicine and care.

It is vitally important that our governments and policymakers are strongly grounded in the reality of AI at this time and are not misled by hype, speculation, and fantasy. It is not clear how much the Hanson Robotics team are aware of the dangers that they are creating by appearing on international platforms with government ministers and policymakers in the audience.

Elon Musk receives FCC approval to launch over 7,500 satellites into space — from digitaltrends.com by Kelly Hodgkins

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The FCC this week unanimously approved SpaceX’s ambitious plan to launch 7,518 satellites into low-Earth orbit. These satellites, along with 4,425 previously approved satellites, will serve as the backbone for the company’s proposed Starlink broadband network. As it does with most of its projects, SpaceX is thinking big with its global broadband network. The company is expected to spend more than $10 billion to build and launch a constellation of satellites that will provide high-speed internet coverage to just about every corner of the planet.

To put this deployment in perspective, there are currently only 1,886 active satellites presently in orbit. These new SpaceX satellites will increase the number of active satellites six-fold in less than a decade.

New simulation shows how Elon Musk’s internet satellite network might work — from digitaltrends.com by Luke Dormehl

Excerpt:

From Tesla to Hyperloop to plans to colonize Mars, it’s fair to say that Elon Musk thinks big. Among his many visionary ideas is the dream of building a space internet. Called Starlink, Musk’s ambition is to create a network for conveying a significant portion of internet traffic via thousands of satellites Musk hopes to have in orbit by the mid-2020s. But just how feasible is such a plan? And how do you avoid them crashing into one another?

From DSC:
Is this even the FCC’s call to make?

One one hand, such a network could be globally helpful, positive, and full of pros. But on the other hand, I wonder…what are the potential drawbacks with this proposal? Will nations across the globe launch their own networks — each of which consists of thousands of satellites?

While I love Elon’s big thinking, the nations need to weigh in on this one.

Geez! Is this the future we want? Also, if we don’t call this exponential change, I don’t know what that expression means then!

On 11/10/2018, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, morals/values, pace of change, platforms, robotics, society, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, workplace, by Daniel Christian

These news anchors are professional and efficient. They’re also not human. — from washingtonpost.com by Taylor Telford

Excerpt:

The new anchors at China’s state-run news agency have perfect hair and no pulse.

Xinhua News just unveiled what it is calling the world’s first news anchors powered by artificial intelligence, at the World Internet Conference on Wednesday in China’s Zhejiang province. From the outside, they are almost indistinguishable from their human counterparts, crisp-suited and even-keeled. Although Xinhua says the anchors have the “voice, facial expressions and actions of a real person,” the robotic anchors relay whatever text is fed to them in stilted speech that sounds less human than Siri or Alexa.

From DSC:
The question is…is this what we want our future to look like? Personally, I don’t care to watch a robotic newscaster giving me the latest “death and dying report.” It comes off bad enough — callous enough — from human beings backed up by TV networks/stations that have agendas of their own; let alone from a robot run by AI.

The rise of crypto in higher education [coinbase.com]

On 11/01/2018, in Asia, Australia, Blockchain, colleges, community colleges, emerging technologies, Europe, higher education, innovation, the downsides of how people use tech, trends, UK, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

The rise of crypto in higher education — from blog.coinbase.com
Coinbase regularly engages with students and universities across the country as part of recruiting efforts. We partnered with Qriously to ask students directly about their thoughts on crypto and blockchain — and in this report, we outline findings on the growing roster of crypto and blockchain courses amid a steady rise in student interest.

Key Findings

42 percent of the world’s top 50 universities now offer at least one course on crypto or blockchain
Students from a range of majors are interested in crypto and blockchain courses — and universities are adding courses across a variety of departments
Original Coinbase research includes a Qriously survey of 675 U.S. students, a comprehensive review of courses at 50 international universities, and interviews with professors and students

Also see:

Blockchain tech is new hot topic for universities around the world — from bigthink.com by Reuben Jackson

On the downside of this are of technology:

Cybercriminals Will Go Where The Market Dictates. Next Up Is Cryptojacking — from which-50.com by Joseph Brookes

Your next doctor’s appointment might be with an AI [Douglas Heaven]

On 10/16/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, health, innovation, the downsides of how people use tech, UK, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Your next doctor’s appointment might be with an AI — from technologyreview.com by Douglas Heaven
A new wave of chatbots are replacing physicians and providing frontline medical advice—but are they as good as the real thing?

Excerpt:

The idea is to make seeking advice about a medical condition as simple as Googling your symptoms, but with many more benefits. Unlike self-diagnosis online, these apps lead you through a clinical-grade triage process—they’ll tell you if your symptoms need urgent attention or if you can treat yourself with bed rest and ibuprofen instead. The tech is built on a grab bag of AI techniques: language processing to allow users to describe their symptoms in a casual way, expert systems to mine huge medical databases, machine learning to string together correlations between symptom and condition.

Babylon Health, a London-based digital-first health-care provider, has a mission statement it likes to share in a big, bold font: to put an accessible and affordable health service in the hands of every person on earth. The best way to do this, says the company’s founder, Ali Parsa, is to stop people from needing to see a doctor.

…

Not everyone is happy about all this. For a start, there are safety concerns. Parsa compares what Babylon does with your medical data to what Facebook does with your social activities—amassing information, building links, drawing on what it knows about you to prompt some action. Suggesting you make a new friend won’t kill you if it’s a bad recommendation, but the stakes are a lot higher for a medical app.

Also see:

AI helps diagnose depression three months earlier than health services by analysing Facebook posts — from independent.co.uk by Alex Matthews-King
‘Depression appears to be quite detectable in this way; it really changes people’s use of social media in a way that something like diabetes doesn’t,’ researchers write

3 items that involve the Internet of Things (IoT)

On 10/15/2018, in 21st century, computer science, emerging technologies, innovation, internet, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, by Daniel Christian

7 Internet of Things examples that are super futuristic— from blog.hubspot.com by Caroline Forsey

Spray-on antennas will revolutionize the Internet of Things — from networkworld.com
Researchers at Drexel University have developed a method to spray on antennas that outperform traditional metal antennas, opening the door to faster and easier IoT deployments.

7 ways to keep your smart home from being hacked — from marketwatch.com

An open letter to Microsoft and Google’s Partnership on AI [Leonhard]

On 10/12/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, bots, business, Canada, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, computer science, corporate / business world, data related items, emerging technologies, engineering, ethics, Europe, future, game-changing environment, Google, hearts -- matters of the heart, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, internet, IT in HE, law schools, machine-to-machine communications, morals/values, platforms, robotics, society, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, UK, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

An open letter to Microsoft and Google’s Partnership on AI — from wired.com by Gerd Leonhard
In a world where machines may have an IQ of 50,000, what will happen to the values and ethics that underpin privacy and free will?

Excerpt:

This open letter is my modest contribution to the unfolding of this new partnership. Data is the new oil – which now makes your companies the most powerful entities on the globe, way beyond oil companies and banks. The rise of ‘AI everywhere’ is certain to only accelerate this trend. Yet unlike the giants of the fossil-fuel era, there is little oversight on what exactly you can and will do with this new data-oil, and what rules you’ll need to follow once you have built that AI-in-the-sky. There appears to be very little public stewardship, while accepting responsibility for the consequences of your inventions is rather slow in surfacing.

In a world where machines may have an IQ of 50,000 and the Internet of Things may encompass 500 billion devices, what will happen with those important social contracts, values and ethics that underpin crucial issues such as privacy, anonymity and free will?

My book identifies what I call the “Megashifts”. They are changing society at warp speed, and your organisations are in the eye of the storm: digitization, mobilisation and screenification, automation, intelligisation, disintermediation, virtualisation and robotisation, to name the most prominent. Megashifts are not simply trends or paradigm shifts, they are complete game changers transforming multiple domains simultaneously.

If the question is no longer about if technology can do something, but why…who decides this?

Gerd Leonhard

From DSC:
Though this letter was written 2 years ago back in October of 2016, the messages, reflections, and questions that Gerd puts on the table are very much still relevant today. The leaders of these powerful companies have enormous power — power to do good, or to do evil. Power to help or power to hurt. Power to be a positive force for societies throughout the globe and to help create dreams, or power to create dystopian societies while developing a future filled with nightmares. The state of the human heart is extremely key here — though many will hate me saying that. But it’s true. At the end of the day, we need to very much care about — and be extremely aware of — the characters and values of the leaders of these powerful companies.

Also relevant/see:

Spray-on antennas will revolutionize the Internet of Things — from networkworld.com by Patrick Nelson
Researchers at Drexel University have developed a method to spray on antennas that outperform traditional metal antennas, opening the door to faster and easier IoT deployments.

From DSC:
Again, it’s not too hard to imagine in this arena that technologies can be used for good or for ill.

California enacts first law regulating Internet of Things devices [Rice]

On 10/11/2018, in 21st century, internet, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, machine-to-machine communications, technologies for your home, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, United States, by Daniel Christian

California enacts first law regulating Internet of Things devices — from iplawtrends.com by David Rice with thanks to my friend Justin Wagner for posting this on LinkedIn

Excerpt:

California has enacted the nation’s first law regulating Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which was signed by Governor Jerry Brown on September 28, 2018. IoT refers to the rapidly-expanding world of internet-connected objects such as home security systems, video monitors, enterprise devices that track packages and vehicles, health monitors, connected cars, smart city devices that manage traffic congestion, and smart meters for utilities.

IoT devices promise to bring efficiencies to a broad range of industries and improve lives. But these devices also collect vast troves of information, and this raises data security and privacy concerns. In 2016, a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the internet infrastructure company Dyn was powered by millions of hacked IoT devices such as web cameras and connected refrigerators. Hackers have used baby monitors to view inside homes, with a prominent recent example being the widely-deployed Mi-Cam baby monitor. If hackers are able to get into critical IoT systems in first responder networks, then there could be public safety risks.

The law states that having a unique preprogrammed password for each IoT device or requiring the user to generate a new means of authentication before access to the device is granted for the first time is deemed to be a reasonable security feature.

Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “Google Glass wasn’t a failure. It raised crucial concerns.” [Eveleth]

Just because we can…

The Insecurity of Things: a Brief History of US IoT Cybersecurity Legislation [Lawrence]

EXCLUSIVE: Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies [Regalado]

Global IoT technology market to reach $318 billion by 2023, says GlobalData [which-50.com]

Is SpaceX’s proposed Starlink broadband network a good thing for the world? Is it even the FCC’s call?

The rise of crypto in higher education [coinbase.com]

3 items that involve the Internet of Things (IoT)

California enacts first law regulating Internet of Things devices [Rice]

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