Final Blog Post

A video, we watched in class about the Futurama Rise at the 1964 World Fair, showed predictions from the 1960s of what society would be like in the future. Some of the predictions included space rovers, space stations, climate labs in Antarctica, sea hotels, an abundance of food from the sea, public transportation, community living, and so much more. This was all predicted in the 1960s, and we have seen such technological advances today, but some of these advances include construction taking over the jungle and making it a tourist area, so while technological advances have helped society immensely, these advances do not come without implementations. 

While this video was correct in its predictions, these predictions left out the negative implications that followed these technological advances. 

In another video, Mad World Remix of Moby Video (Are You Lost in the World Like Me), the director depicts the society we currently live in highlighting the negative implications of technology. Everyone in the video is walking around on their phone 24/7 ignoring anything and everything around them unless it pops up on their screen. As shown in the video, if you do not get in on the trend of social media or technology, you do not exist in society today. We are jailed to our phones, where we film everything, take photos of food, worship celebrities, present ourselves in a positive, filtered, and false manner, and communicate electronically rather than in person. 

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I have been able to witness the effect of technological advances in society because I was able to experience the shift between flip phones and iPhones. Personally, I believe this is what caused the majority of the problems in society today because as a kid I would play outside making ice cream in the snow or building forts inside rarely looking at a screen, but now kids who are my age today, chose a screen over their imagination any day.

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I work as a camp counselor where I work with students from ages 5 - 15. These kids would rather be on their electronics than play outside, but luckily, the younger kids are not allowed to bring technology. However, the older kids can because sometimes there are long bus rides, but as a counselor what I find is these kids will sneakily use their iPads, iPhones, and video game devices outside or to whatever location we are at. It causes more issues to try and take the device away from the child because then you are focusing on that one kid rather than the entire camp you are supposed to be looking out for. 

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For example, instead of going into the pool, kids will go in for 30 minutes and then spend the remaining time on their electronics. These kids also have many attention problems and are ultimately addicted to their devices. One boy, for example, always had his video game with him and when we would take it away he would start yelling at us so much that he was sent to the disciplinary office. 

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Kids should not be addicted to technology at such a young age because they are facing problems that the average adult cannot even handle at more than half the children's age. Kids today are cyberbullied, sex trafficked, kidnapped, taken advantage of online, and so much more. 

I would be remiss to mention that I am addicted to technology too. I mean who is not in today's society? Realizing this, I have taken some steps, so that I would not go through withdrawal if I did not have my phone. Growing up, I had a Leapster instead of a D.S. so it was more educational and I had a very old iPad and iPod so I could not access anything besides games. Then going into 6th grade, I got my first iPhone, as I had over an hour-long bus ride to and from school each day. It was not until 7th grade that I started using social media. I immediately became addicted and was always on my phone. 

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Between 6th and 7th grade, my middle school started allowing student to bring their devices to the classroom to use as a tool, but it ultimately is where I noticed the shift in technology usage for me personally. In order the address the problem, in high school, I gave up social media for a while during Lent, and also because I went to a boarding school, I was not allowed to have my phone at night. Then in college, I found I was always on my phone again, so I turned off my like count on Instagram, turned off my Instagram and Snapchat notifications, and deleted TikTok. 

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Today I am not on my phone as much besides when it comes to communicating with people as I get tons of texts every day as I serve on the executive committee for my sorority and members are always texting me. It is quite literally my job to respond to these members promptly. Looking at my screen time, I spend most of the time on the messages app and then Instagram.

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Companies have been wildly successful in their ability to get people addicted to their platforms so that they can sell our information, collect data, and show us advertisements, but this does not come without a price. 

As shown in Medical News Today, technology is causing psychological effects such as isolation,
depression, and anxiety as well as physical health issues such as eye strain, poor posture, sleep problems, and reduced physical activity. It does not help that there was over a year when society was locked inside due to COVID-19 with the only connection to other people outside of your household being through technology.

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There are even more problems that children are experiencing because of their use of technology at such a young age, and just like vaping, I am sure these implications for these children's future will be discovered soon, but scientists already know that children's technology usage leads to issues such as a lack of attention, low academic performance, lack of creativity, aggressive behaviors and much more. 

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There is little to nothing being done about these technological implications unless the parent, teacher, or individual facing the issues themselves steps in, but right now policymakers are concerned about the
privacy issues that are following technology. Overall while technology has helped society immensly, it has also created so many issues within society that are irreversible and need to be addressed.

Blog Post #11

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Reflecting on the various topics my fellow classmates discussed during the EOTO 2 Presentations, I can say that advancing technology is crazy and almost impossible to wrap your head around. We are currently living in the future and there are so many other places that we can go regarding technological advancement. 

While people in the past thought that in this day in age we would have flying cars, we have yet to create such a luxury, but have advanced in many other ways that one would have never been able to predict such as the creation of Chat GDP, Clear in airports, street monitoring cameras, social influencers, etc. While there are no flying cars, the artificial intelligence that surrounds us as a society today is extremely concerning.

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Specifically, one of my fellow classmates, Paige Jones, discussed the 5 eyes which is a "cooperative intelligence network that monitors the electronic communications of citizens and foreign governments." She told us that the 5 countries included in the 5 eyes are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand creating the largest intelligence network in the world. This was my first time every hearing about the organization.

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I personally liked Jones's connection with the topic as she said during her presentation that this is concerning as countries have found a loophole in being able to break their own countries' privacy laws, but ultimately it is for the good of the people. I believe that this organization should have a bit more oversight because this could easily start being abused. With the concern of corruption with American intelligence agencies, I cannot imagine the corruption and concerns that might follow the 5 eyes.

Blog Post #10

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Artificial intelligence is one of the current threats to society as it is a new form of technology with unimaginable power with very little oversight. Technology is a very important part of society as it makes life easier, but with artificial intelligence comes other issues that society has yet to face. 

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In class today, we watched a Frontlines documentary about AI. The documentary started by talking about the 2016 game in South Korea where the champion of the Chinese go game played Google AI. Everyone in China was watching because they thought they had it in the bag. The AI was referred to as Alpha Go and used deep learningto study the game, learn the rules, and come up with moved humans have yet to think of. In face the computer pulled a move and everyone was shocked. The computer won four games and the champion won one. This was the start of artificial intelligence vs human intelligence. 

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Artificial intelligence is also referred to as automation and it is taking people's jobs and ultimately harming society as these robots do not pay taxes and contribute to society like humans do. Over the years, productivity has been going up while pay has been going down. Unlike the common misconception, offshoring is not causing jobs to decrease, but rather automatic which is going to lead to the death of the middle class. 

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For example, Washington D.C.'s number one job is a cashier, but cashiers are being replaced by automation (self-checkout) taking jobs away from people who contribute to society. In fact, automation is disproportionally taking jobs from women. There is now a requirement for people to have new skills, but people who have already graduated college and who did not study technology while in school, do not have the financial ability to go back to school and learn these new skills that are required to oversee automation. Inequality is commonly talked about in society, but not the fact that AI is driving this inequality.

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AI is the ultimate tool for wealth accumulation. For example, Google was failing as a small company, but they realized they could track how people interact with the computer and use it to predict their actions. They kept this a secret from users until 2004 when they revealed from 2000 to 2004 they had a 3,590% increase in revenue because of this. Behavioral prediction is getting rid of uncertainty and allowing organizations such as Google and Facebook to influence real-world behavior. In the 2010 election,
Facebook influenced 3,040 people to vote and as elections have been getting closer each year, these tech companies can sway an election by encouraging people to vote and encouraging them to vote a certain way. 

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Governments are already taking advantage of AI. In China, they have cameras at every street corner where they are identifying their citizens to keep track of jaywalking, but ultimately to show that the government is always watching resembling 1984 a little too much. In one territory in China where there was an uprising years ago, they are using AI to identify people who look like terrorists and reeducate them again touching a little bit too close to Big Brother in 1984. 

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There have been some consequences for the disruption of privacy such as a privacy policy enacted in California that granted people the right to know, the right to say no, and offer a third-party opt-out to users, so not as much of their personal information is online, but this is only a bandaid on this much bigger privacy problem. Facebook has been fined billions of dollars and Mark Zuckerberg has apologized in front of Congress multiple times, yet there still has yet to be any real change. People who started these tech companies or worked at these organizations at the beginning are leaving because they are concerned about the power these companies have. Documentaries such as The Social Dilemma are bringing awareness to the privacy issues that are at stake with AI, but there is still much work to be done. 

Blog Post #9

 

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The term whistleblower, first used in the 1950s, refers to "an individual who, without authorization, reveals private or classified information about an organization, usually related to wrongdoing or misconduct."  The term represents a referee or policeman blowing a whistle to symbolize an illegal act. Whistleblowers have the public interest at heart in order to bring awareness to an issue when nothing else is being done. 

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One of the most historic whistleblowers is Daniel Ellsberg, the famous Pentagon Papers whistleblower. In 1971, Ellsberg "leaked portions of a classified 7,000-page report that detailed the history of U.S. intervention in Indochina from World War II until 1968." Ultimately, these reports were known as the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg made copies of the reports and leaked them to the New York Times which published them revealing that the government was lying about the war's success in Vietnam. Another famous whistleblower who decided to break confidentiality for the overall interest of the public was Edward Snowden (a National Security Agency employee). In 2013, Snowden worked with The Guardian to reveal information outing the government (specifically the National Security Act) for spying on its citizens. 

 

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Whistleblowers justify whistleblowing by saying the public interest outweighs the government interest at play. In both the cases above, the public interest outweighed the government interest as the government was hiding information from the people or overstepping. In order to whistleblow one should have tried other ways to bring about change, have evidence and good reasoning, and accomplish some form of public good by whistleblowing. While it is thought to be morally obligatory to speak up when you see something wrong, "it is only in rare instances that the law required an individual to act to prevent harm."

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When someone decides to whistleblow, they have to be okay with the punishment that may follow it. There have been various whistleblower protection acts put into place (some set up such as the witness protection program), but they have proved unsuccessful. Snowden knew he was going to get in trouble and while he originally was anonymous, three days after the story was released regarding wiretapping, he came out as the whistleblower but said he did not want the story to be about him but rather the issue at hand. It is a fine line for journalists to reveal information that the public should know without affecting national security. It is important for citizens to know what is happening in a society, but knowing too much could cause fear, hence the fine line. There's a reason why the government chooses to keep some things from its citizens. 

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Overall, "the ability of a democratic citizenry to access the working of its government is equally essential
and constitutive of its functioning." If the American government was not somewhat transparent then we would not have a functioning democracy as the people are an essential part of a democracy as it is a government for the people and by the people. 

Sources:

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Pentagon Papers". Encyclopedia Britannica, 31 Oct. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pentagon-Papers. Accessed 27 November 2023.

Harwood, William H. "Secrecy, transparency and government whistleblowing." Philosophy & Social Criticism 43.2 (2017): 164-186.

Kleinig, John. "whistleblower". Encyclopedia Britannica, 10 Nov. 2023,               https://www.britannica.com/topic/whistleblower. Accessed 27 November 2023.

Schiemann, Robert, et al. “Wikileaks and Whistleblowing.” Wikileaks and Whistleblowing, Stanford,cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/2010-11/WikiLeaks/index-2.html. Accessed 27 Nov. 2023.

Blog Post #7

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One new invention that has increased in popularity in my lifetime is the Apple AirPods. Innovations can be viewed through the lens of the diffusion theory which "seeks to explain how and why new ideas and practices are adopted, including why the adoption of new ideas can spread out over long periods." As shown in the image, the diffusion theory has five stages: the pioneers, the early adaptors, the early majority, the late majority, and the laggers. 

Viewing the invention of the Airpods through the lens of the Diffusion Theory: 

• The pioneer of the Airpods was the company Beats. 
  

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  Beats sold wireless earbuds and headphones starting in 2012, but not many people used them besides runners, gym goers, or anyone else the wireless earbuds and headphones would benefit, so they did not have to deal with a pesky cord. 
• In 2014, Apple bought Beats.

• The early adaptors were those who first bought the Apple Airpods when they were released in December 2016. 

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  In September 2016, Apple released the iPhone 7 without a headphone jack and to use regular wire earbuds or headphones, customers had to use an adaptor and could not charge their phone and listen to music at the same time unless they invested in a special dual adapter. 
• In December 2016, Apple released the Airpods, and those who did not want to deal with an adapter and wanted to try new technology, especially those who were technology and Apple product enthusiasts, purchased the new Apple Airpods. They were also released during Christmas time, and I specifically remember a fair amount of my peers asking for them for Christmas. 

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• The early majority began when more and more people began replacing their old iPhones and purchasing new ones that did not have the headphone jack. 
  
• As people started seeing how easy it was to use AirPods and not have to deal with a tangled cord that could easily break or get lost, more people started to purchase AirPods.

• The late majority joined following 2019.

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  In 2019, Apple released the new AirPod Pros featuring new unique features. 
  
• In 2020, Apple stopped giving away earbuds and the adaptor for the headphone jack with the purchase of an iPhone. Apple also released the Airpod Max which is a wireless headphone. 

• We are currently in the laggard stage. 

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  As the price of AirPods went down, popularity increased, dupes were released, and concerns with Bluetooth decreased, the acceptance of this new technology increased. 
  
• Some people today even make fun of those who have headphones with cords or "fake AirPods" so getting in on the trend is very important to younger generations. 

One downside when it comes to this new invention is that people are expected to have the latest form of technology, but this is not feasible for everyone. Apple makes money by slowing phones and other technology devices down after two or more years in an attempt to get people to upgrade as Apple is an organization and their goal is to make money. 

Also, many older generations are not purchasing AirPods as there is no reason for them to as they do not use technology the same way that younger generations do (to make phone calls, listen to music, utilize noise cancellation when studying, working out, etc). Older generations stick to listening to the radio or CDs rather than their phone. Finally, another concern with AirPods is the question of whether Bluetooth causes cancer or other health issues.

Overall, for younger generations (if there are no health risks) the benefits outweigh the negatives, as AirPods make our lives easier, which is ultimately the purpose behind new forms of technology.