Ed.: 032218 – Words: 1179 – Audio: N/A
I came to a realization when I recently watched Mr. Zuckerberg talk to CNN regarding the exploding revelations regarding Facebook divulging confidential member data to Cambridge Analytica for the Trump campaign. That realization was two-fold. The first is that the creators of these social media apps that become popular and turn into mega-companies have young owners who do not fully grasp the impact of their creations. The second realization is that our nation is very likely going to suffer some technological calamity within the next 20 years. Let’s explore.
Kid Programmers Can Be Like Kids Playing With A Loaded Gun –
What truly amazed me about Zuckerberg’s recent interview trying to explain and apologize for the current lapses in Facebook security was how little he seemed to understand the social consequences of what he created a decade ago. He’s 33 years old.. pretty young by mega-corporation CEO standards… and he’s worth something like 60-70 billion… within like 12 years… starting when he was in his 20’s to develop Facebook. I am totally sure that all he cared about in the beginning was developing Facebook, getting it to market, and making it a revenue stream. He totally did all that with better than outstanding success. But what he failed to understand.. and what many garage or basement programmers fail to understand when developing their own app ideas is what kind of effect their app product would be as it became increasingly popular and part of the daily culture.
Zuckerberg is worth billions but that in NO way guarantees he’s a businessman (much like Trump, actually) with strategic business acumen. I have no idea who Zuckerberg has as a professional staff nor if they are even effective. Facebook could very easily be one of those companies that end up being huge cash cows in spite of any strategic planning. But the young man seems to have never considered the predators in the real world who might use his product to their ill ends. This is far more than just understanding Facebook could be hacked and some code will keep that from happening. You’d think he would understand that given his product is such a part of mainstream life, what might happen if it suddenly stopped. What might happen if someone “got into it” in some form to affect content, harvest data (beyond normal hacking attempts), even introduce over time huge numbers of false members in an effort to dump huge amounts of what appears to be normal traffic, but containing variants of negative opinion about a potential political candidate to affect election results (similar to the Russians). I can’t even imagine all the potential real world threats. Obviously someone at Facebook didn’t fully comprehend enough to monitor Cambridge Analytica.
How many of these huge social media products are out there.. like Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, yada, yada, that are totally in tune to the potential risks of their popular products being hijacked in some form? Do they understand they need certain levels of quality control when they sell their data to third parties? Oversight and follow thru is necessary. They have all the power to demand that. Even in selling data WITH the approval of members, these companies need to make sure their data is being used accordingly.
Given the immense universal popularity of Facebook, if it shut down tomorrow.. what does that do to the nation? I have no idea personally. To simply presume that Facebook is simply a happy venue for people to share benign social interests and make “friends” and is not somehow linked to the greater internet is a big mistake. And as these kinds of apps increase in the years ahead the unintended effects will grow.
Who watches these kids? I dunno if even anyone can.
Is A Great Tech Calamity Looming On The Horizon?
I think it is. I won’t go so far as to suggest it might be something apocalyptic like the artificial intelligence “Skynet” taking over the world by killing all the humans (ala “The Terminator” franchise). I will suggest tech could lead to some conflict between nations or a manipulation of vital resources (utilities) or the ability to interrupt trade, or transportation (air or rail or both). Society is like the Titanic… cruising along with no one in the lookout seat, and suddenly hitting an iceberg (no, not a “Zuckerberg”)… a threat that initially didn’t look so bad on the surface, but what is unseen could threaten to sink us.
Why the fatalism? It’s not for the sake of some fatalistic preference that I make this prediction but because it’s the nature of man to push forward and create, adapt, and explore all that in our environment that makes us curious. While artificial intelligence will be the next tech explosion to greatly enhance our lives… it will also be VERY vulnerable to both intentional and accidental abuse… and the margin for some great error is very large.
Just consider for the moment vehicles driving by themselves. It’s inevitable. But common sense tells us as human drivers the huge amount of potential threats we guard against when driving does not seem to easily fit into bytes and bits. Yet we will press ahead to make driverless vehicles. Recently as last week an automated Uber vehicle (human was behind the wheel but had switched on “autonomous mode”) killed a pedestrian. This will not be the last death for sure. If it’s determined that there was no human error in the death (I can only imagine the legal mess in all this; is the guy behind the wheel legally responsible?) do we then suspect a “problem” with the vehicle’s hardware or software, or both? Is it too far a Hollywood stretch to imagine the computer making a “decision” to hit the pedestrian, then quirk its own code to misdirect the investigation to something less suspicious? Of course… for now.
As each year progresses our world becomes increasingly more vulnerable because of our dependency on technology. I recall some years back when our company had some fire drill and the follow up review on tips for survival if trapped inside the building. One such tip was to hide in the rest room.. use paper towels to seal the door cracks… then turn on the water faucets and breath the air escaping with the water. Well, when was the last time you were in a public rest room with a faucet that stayed on?
Then there was the recent issue with two Chinese cell phone manufacturers having fiddled with the chips. It’s not a far stretch at all to imagine a foreign country manufacturing some electronic product with compromised integrated circuitry that tracks and/or controls the population. Back when we invaded Iraq our intel people inserted “bad” computer chips into printers being shipped to Iraq prior to the shock & awe that ended up taking down certain anti-aircraft systems. The threat is real.
There is going to be a lot of bad coming along with all that good technology brings to us. I’m not sure I wanna be around for that.
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I doubt either of us will be around for robot call-girls and Skynet, Doug. I was happy enough with an electronic calculator the size of a phone book, when this ‘tech revolution’ started. Like any revolution, it gets out of control, and then someone comes along to put a stop to it.
As for Zuckerberg (and add any similar tech giant’s name…) I think you are being kind to them. Such boy geniuses know all too well the potential of their apps and inventions. It’s all about selling advertising, and they were sure as shit aware of that, whatever they say now.
Best wishes, Pete.
I agree, Pete. The end is after we are long ended. Maybe they will save our consciousness in a test tube somewhere. I’ll tap on the side of the tube if I see you. 🙂
Oh yes.. the programming kids like the money. I tried to mention that part when I pointed out they understood the revenue stream. I just don’t think they see the big picture as it relates to vulnerabilities beyond just trying to detect your average hacker.
BTW… I changed a format a bit. I believe on your end my entire post shows up in your email and when you want to reply it takes you to my blog at the right comment box to complete. I’ve changed it a bit.. what will display in your email will be a “read more” tease that will take you to the post on the blog itself. Let’s see if that fixes your issues with my replies. Let me know on my next post how it works out.
Sorry, but Skynet already exists and so do sex-robots. (If I leave the links, my comment will go to the SPAM bin.)
I am waiting for the “Total Recall” idea… I attach a spaghetti strainer to the computer and it convinces my brain I just had an orgasm with one of Trump’s porn stars. Who cares at that point if it’s fake? It sure seemed real at the time.
Yeah, but does Sharron Stone come with that??? If so, I’m in!!!
Speaking of Total Recall…The annoying, over-friendly, driverless, robot-cabs that took people around in Total Recall are now technically possible. It’s just that nobody has started the Johnny Cab company…yet. I give it 3-5 years TOPS until cabbies start getting tossed on the scrap heap…with many, many, many more bodies to come. In Canuckistan, recent estimates say 30-50% of all jobs will be replaced by robots within 20 years (I think it was. Maybe faster.). Even if Skynet & Terminator don’t come to pass, most humans are still toast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWgrvNHjKkY
As I always say, “Every sci-fi nightmare has either come true, or is just around the corner.”
hehe.. you are right.. most certainly there will be a Johnny Cab Company in the near future. Hehehe.
The Zuck got what he was after….fame and cash…..that is all these techies want out of life and who it zaps matters not….chuq
Exactly. Just look at the (long forgotten) deceptions that Zuckerhead used when converting his company to a stock-owned corporation. Lies about number of users & profits. He also got Gold Mansacks to help him avoid the “400 investors and you’re automatically a public company that must disclose financial information” law. That allowed him to curry a lot of favour with unnamed, well-placed, folk…and keep lying about profits.
The truth is most of these techies are now only in it to get bought up. They hire 20-30 virgins. The local press fawns all over them for creating “jobs of the future” (Barrrfff!). Governments give them tax breaks, bribes, freebies..Then they make a farting app that data-mines users and turns their phones into zombies (control of audio/video functions etc). Then they get bought by a Tech Giant for $1-2 billion. The virgins get fired and the owners move to Silicon Valley and get hired as temporary consultants for the Tech Giant. And odds are the Tech Giant never even use the app.
This exact thing has even happened in my podunk hicktown. It all happened so fast, they didn’t even finish the building renovations the city paid for.
As I always say, the least asked question of the New Millenium is, “How can this possibly go wrong?” And as usual, nobody involved (even the casual user) has asked this question…or gives a shit about the answer. The Inter-pipe-web has gone, horribly, horribly, wrong in sooooo many ways. Just a few thoughts because the topic can be exhausting for me:
1) The “Information Super Highway” is really just a warehouse of utterly meaningless bullshit & lies you’re forced to wade through to get to snippets of anything worthwhile. The Old Media used to have gatekeepers; experienced professionals that could prioritize stories and provide proof. Today, utter lies sit on the shelf right next to absolute fact and nobody can tell the difference…nor cares to…if it’s contrary to their pre-existing opinions. (People would rather see celeb side-boob anyway.) As demonstrated in a recent X Files Episode, nothing is real anymore. And what is real has been devalued to the point of irrelevancy. Facts, truth & reality are merely “consumer choices”.
2) Because it’s all about speed & convenience, it’s made us all even lazier, stupider and more hostile than we already were. And that’s intentional. There is ZERO technical reason whatsoever that The Twit Zone has to limit the number of letters you can use in a response. They do it on purpose to encourage short, sharp, snarky/nasty responses. It truncates our thinking and puts us in an emotional state. Both things make it easier for products to be sold to us.
3) This is all intentional. The very profit model of these websites is to provide (Capital F) “Friends” to people who don’t have any and who are desperate to be “liked”. In exchange, they “harvest” every grain of info they can on you and try to turn it into a commodity. It’s mostly advertising orientated. But this latest debacle only shows what else it can be used to make people do. This is all about compiling algorithms that determine the weaknesses of -not just groups- but specific individuals and targeting them for whatever purpose they want. I think Zuckerhead refers to this as “brain hacking”.
4) Grandma loves you and misses you and really wishes you’d visit at least once more before she dies. But she understands that you’ve all got really important pictures to take of your lunches to share with your close (capital “f”) Friends in Cambodia.