Blog #10

     The section at the very beginning of the documentary about AlphaGo was jarring. The human race put up its best competitor in the game of Go against an AI program. The AI came out on top. The ramifications of this are that AI could best any given member of the human race in Go. This leads to the logical question, what else can AI do better than us?

    Shockingly enough, there are pros to data mining. The idea is that large companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook collect data on people so they can advertise better to those people based on things they know they like. This means that when a person goes online they are more likely to be advertised something they would buy. Personally, I would rather be advertised something that I am likely to buy than something I definitely would not buy. 

    There are significantly more cons of data mining than there are pros. It is a terrifying fact that large corporations know absolutely everything about us. I am this close to getting rid of all technology. However, it is impossible not to be watched because we have gotten to the point where technology is an absolute necessity. I am unable to get rid of my laptop because I'm typing this blog on it and my grade depends on that. I want to get rid of my phone but I wouldn't be able to call my parents, or listen to music, or take pictures. Technology has gotten so incredibly practical that it is now impossible to live without. My data is being collected and there is not a single thing I can do about it. We live in a modern dystopia and it is horrifying. 

    Identity theft has never been easier. There is software that gathers everything from which words a person is likely to use to how they walk. If someone wanted to steal someone's identity and they had access to this it would be so incredibly easy. An AI can send texts that sound like something I came up with, They can make deep fakes that look like a video of me doing something. There are zero ways to protect against it. They could already exist and I would have no way of even knowing. If a corporation wanted to steal my identity, they could have already done it.