A luddite's guide to loving technology
Disclaimer: I like technology. I play video games, have a cell phone and tablet and several computers - I work with technology every day. I have fun with it and enjoy the benefits and convenience of so many innovations we've been refining for the past decade and a bit. It actually hurts my head to contemplate how much information we access, consume and create every day.
With that out of the way, here we go. I've been thinking about this subject for the past three years at least, given the various subjects and themes I've been playing with in the book I've been writing. Insert obligatory other blog/book shout-out here.
The fact is, every day we create these little digital footprints. Which is fine. Maybe it's a product of my age, since I'm among the oldest millennials around (if you subscribe to the theory that our generation began in about 1980). But I digress. Each of those footprints isn't created by us per se, but rather by all the various apps we use. As they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch. By making programs and platforms (think Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) available for us, their creators have had to create ingenious methods of monetizing their inventions. Paying for a subscription to access a site isn't popular anymore, neither is paying for an app on a phone or tablet. Instead, we seem to prefer free versions - just look on the Google store sometime. Top preforming apps tend to be, at least in theory, free to use. In app purchases are a separate issue, but seem rather predatory, given that there's usually no upper limit on what you can spend.
But putting up with ads is only part of the story. Those apps also feed our personal information, including contacts, location, activity histories, and so on and so forth into any number of aggregating databases, which in turn package the data to sell for a profit. This may be a rather simplistic understanding and/or explanation of the whole 'big data' thing, but ultimately what I'm getting at is pretty simple: selling ads and information, packaged with something useful or entertaining, is how most businesses make money online.
To be clear, I'm not against this (I'm even doing a bit of data gathering myself over at the other blog, minus the selling, sharing and/or making money part). As long as we are aware of who is gathering data and what they are taking and using it for, I think there's no problem with this kind of research. But as with anything, there are good ways and bad ways of going about it. As I look at the technologies of tomorrow - things that are just emerging now, I start to think about how these practices are going to evolve. If we succeed in creating a functional artificial intelligence, or manage to hook our brains into computers to speed up the rate of information exchange - and these are technologies currently being explored - how are they going to be used to generate money?
Because that seems to be the fundamental goal of our technology. I start to wonder about the ads of the future. Popups and robocalls are already annoying enough - they were annoying back in the late 1990s when the internet first really got going, and they're still annoying now. Imagine having one of those inside your head. Imagine artificial intelligences competing with each other, each of which is only concerned is extracting as much information and revenue from you as possible in the shortest amount of time. Or a hackable bridge between your thoughts and internet connection. You think sales calls or scam emails are bad now, just wait. I imagine having a screaming two year old in your head demanding you buy a specific product or pay for 'protection' against screaming two year olds will probably be a massively profitable venture. Not so much for the people affected by it, but definitely for anyone willing to exploit ethically questionable practices.
Right now, I'm just wondering how far we'll let things go. I mean, at what point do we take a look at this and start planning for the necessary safeguards? After the first mass rush on Yoga pants or overwhelming and inexplicable desire to give money to Nigerian princes?
I'm sure I'll be writing a bit more on the subject in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, it's food for thought right? Anybody?
As always - thanks for reading.
With that out of the way, here we go. I've been thinking about this subject for the past three years at least, given the various subjects and themes I've been playing with in the book I've been writing. Insert obligatory other blog/book shout-out here.
The fact is, every day we create these little digital footprints. Which is fine. Maybe it's a product of my age, since I'm among the oldest millennials around (if you subscribe to the theory that our generation began in about 1980). But I digress. Each of those footprints isn't created by us per se, but rather by all the various apps we use. As they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch. By making programs and platforms (think Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) available for us, their creators have had to create ingenious methods of monetizing their inventions. Paying for a subscription to access a site isn't popular anymore, neither is paying for an app on a phone or tablet. Instead, we seem to prefer free versions - just look on the Google store sometime. Top preforming apps tend to be, at least in theory, free to use. In app purchases are a separate issue, but seem rather predatory, given that there's usually no upper limit on what you can spend.
But putting up with ads is only part of the story. Those apps also feed our personal information, including contacts, location, activity histories, and so on and so forth into any number of aggregating databases, which in turn package the data to sell for a profit. This may be a rather simplistic understanding and/or explanation of the whole 'big data' thing, but ultimately what I'm getting at is pretty simple: selling ads and information, packaged with something useful or entertaining, is how most businesses make money online.
To be clear, I'm not against this (I'm even doing a bit of data gathering myself over at the other blog, minus the selling, sharing and/or making money part). As long as we are aware of who is gathering data and what they are taking and using it for, I think there's no problem with this kind of research. But as with anything, there are good ways and bad ways of going about it. As I look at the technologies of tomorrow - things that are just emerging now, I start to think about how these practices are going to evolve. If we succeed in creating a functional artificial intelligence, or manage to hook our brains into computers to speed up the rate of information exchange - and these are technologies currently being explored - how are they going to be used to generate money?
Because that seems to be the fundamental goal of our technology. I start to wonder about the ads of the future. Popups and robocalls are already annoying enough - they were annoying back in the late 1990s when the internet first really got going, and they're still annoying now. Imagine having one of those inside your head. Imagine artificial intelligences competing with each other, each of which is only concerned is extracting as much information and revenue from you as possible in the shortest amount of time. Or a hackable bridge between your thoughts and internet connection. You think sales calls or scam emails are bad now, just wait. I imagine having a screaming two year old in your head demanding you buy a specific product or pay for 'protection' against screaming two year olds will probably be a massively profitable venture. Not so much for the people affected by it, but definitely for anyone willing to exploit ethically questionable practices.
Right now, I'm just wondering how far we'll let things go. I mean, at what point do we take a look at this and start planning for the necessary safeguards? After the first mass rush on Yoga pants or overwhelming and inexplicable desire to give money to Nigerian princes?
I'm sure I'll be writing a bit more on the subject in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, it's food for thought right? Anybody?
As always - thanks for reading.
Comments