Why fake news? Basically, it is needed in order to get the audience happy and entertained. Everyone has heard of the boy that cried wolf, correct? Well this is basically the same. However, many people, including me have believed and read stories that seem to be so true that it’s so hard to distinguish which is real and which is fake. Now when I started writing my blogs, I was always looking for something that relates to ethics and technology. I did write a blog once that I thought was interesting; yet as one of my classmates made a comment regarding the issue I was talking about, it turns out that it was fake news! I couldn’t believe it, but he was kind to leave me with the information I needed to confirm it was fake news. As this being my last blog I was looking for something a little different and I came across this website called “recode” which I hope the information is creditable. The article “We’ve had fake news, fake science – and now, ‘fake tech’” has completely surprised me.
According to Phil Baker, companies such as Magic Leap, Indiegogo, Kickstarter and Theranos have utilized fake information and spread it through social media to get other companies to support and invest in what they thought was going to be one of the greatest investments of the time. Fake tech has “raised $1.4 billion based on videos” created to lured and gain profit from something that is not even there yet. Therefore, as Baker suggested complicated and overwhelming technology and terms must be written by someone who has the knowledge of what is actually going on, “potential customers and investors” should get informed before investing millions, if not billions in the development of AR or VR. Anyone can become pray of such scams, but is it ethical for journalists or reporters to bring fake news to the table? Yes it is, because it gives a sense that every time we look at the news online and or in Facebook they are fake. There is actual and real news out there and people might not believe it is real anymore because someone is making news up. So, when real news is showed, it becomes hard for people to believe in them especially if they are about technology. “So, anyone with a clever idea and a simulated video can raise money proposing an idea that’s impossible to do.”
5 Comments
“For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.” – Margaret Heffernan
Human beings are always seeking to improve and take the next step. Now as autonomous vehicles and robots are beginning to take shape it is most likely that conflicts are just the beginning. In the article “Uber: We don’t need a permit for self-driving cars” by Dara Kerr is mentioned that the state of California regulations are extremely strict when it comes to permits. If a vehicle needs to be in operation it has to have all its paper work done and in order. If this isn’t the case then the car is not able to be driven. So Uber has decided that they don’t have to report and get permits from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). Their approach to this is “don’t ask for permission, but be prepared to seek forgiveness.” Yet, as the article moves on, Uber doesn’t even need the DMV’s forgiveness for something they have done and has come to be such a major success. They preferred to leave the risk to civilians and people than to get a permit for their driverless cars. Uber is one of the first companies that bring “autonomous vehicles to the public in the US. “ Other industries such as Toyota, Ford, Volvo, and Tesla are a few that have gone through the process of getting a permit from the DMV. The DMV conducts testing on self-driving cars, checks if they are secure and if they are not, they can’t go around on the streets. However, Uber doesn’t think the same, in the article it is mentioned that Anthony Levandowski, Uber’s vice president believes that “California’s rules and requirements are overly strict” and that they “could have the unintended consequence of slowing innovation.” Innovation is already here and not because the DMV requiring these industries to get a permit means they are cutting innovation. The DMV’s values include the safety and protection of the people, they value the life and that’s what they are trying to protect. They value life and they don’t want to see any accidents coming from autonomous cars. If the cars are not ready to take the road then there should be someone saying and implementing rules. Even if the driverless car is still in the hands of a human it doesn’t mean that it is secured, it only means that there is a greater risk for the people inside the car and in the streets. So Uber is trying to go around the issue by implying that “[their] cars are not yet ready to drive without a person monitoring them.” Yet there has been an accident involving Uber. “There have been a few reports of cars involved in fender-benders, going the wrong way down one-way streets and ignoring traffic signals.” Therefore, Uber should be taken out of the streets if they don’t have a permit. Everyone knows that there is always a price to pay to use technology. Technology does not only cost us our privacy and our freedom, but it also can cost our lives. The lives of many people are on the line each day, each day they people spend on their smartphone, computer and other electronics it’s another day they that many peoples’ bodies are being pushed to their limits. So the reason “Why your tech is a pain in your neck. And back. And eyes” is because people like myself and like many others don’t know the risk it pose to the body and brain. Susan Friedman explains that she has been putting her phone away when she is exercising and is constantly moving. It is a challenge to stop oneself from the use of social media and technology. However, if she doesn’t do this or if no one does the body becomes tense, the eyes start fluttering, “neck aches. Sore back. Eyestrain. Thumb strain. Poor sleep. Lack of focus” becomes symptoms that digital age is involved with. Likewise, “[the] use of laptops, phones, and tablets all day can lead to chronic pain and possibility blunted long-term memory” as well as a dependence on “being constantly connected – and anxious when you’re not.”
The consequences of technology haven’t stopped people from going online and playing long hours a day or even read from a small screen. What they don’t know is that by always having their head down and sitting with a bad posture can lead to a misaligned spine and putting “as much as 60 pounds of force” on their neck. Yet, even when people do feel the pain they decide not to do anything and keep playing, reading and ignored the issue. For example, younger children are hard to deal with when it comes to electronics. They might not listen and ignore their parents’ advice, children who play “mobile [games], which relies on longer periods of intense, repetitive action, increases [the] risk” of the overuse of the joint at the thumb’s base. The point is that many people not just children are drown by technology that it takes part of their daily routine and are absorbed by digital work. Friedman, also explains that the mind is being affected and has come to be an issue for many people. The ability to explain, recall or even do something has taken people to an extended in which they are not able to process and retain information. Anthony Wagnet a Stanford professor has found that “heavy multitaskers found it hard to ignore irrelevant information when performing a single mental task”. Wagnet also says that brains don’t really multitask, what the brain does is switching from one activity to another. So having a smartphone, tablet or any other device cannot only give the illusion of a false reality, intrusion to privacy, but it can lead to chronic pain and other body issues. It is hard not to have the phone at hand or any other electronics, but it is better if when people use their phone at night they set it up to “orange-hued”, because the “exposure to green and blue light before bedtime is especially harmful.” People have to be informed of the consequences technology can do to ones body. People need to distract themselves and live a healthy life without being in constant pain or even blind from using the phone. Just like Friedman says “ You have to set aside time for yourself that no one can interrupt…. You’ve got to take control of your technology rather than let it take control of you.” Augmented reality has come to be known as the next world of virtual reality, we have seen it in Pokemon Go in action already and what it has done to the younger generation. There is always a price that needs to be paid in order to play and have the benefits of such games. Technology has taken the human beings to a path that is not clear. There must be a way to protect users from themselves when they immerge into a world that is not a virtual one anymore, there are steps that users need to take to be safe and steps that developers and engineers need to take a deeper look.
The national geographic has “the big idea” of what augmented reality will look like. The world they seem to be waiting for is an astonishing view of what can be found and done with augmented reality and has virtual reality becoming something so small compared to what is expected by 2021. National geographic shows a world in which everyone would be able to see “bubbles floating... filled with cool info about stuff… on the street[s]” and we can call it “reality 1.0”. This reality will be able to use the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. The emergence of this new technology could bring people that speak different languages to establish a conversation and or find their way in an unfamiliar city. As stated in the article, the “computer-generated images on the real world” make it so fascinating to work with. For example, if a person is on the street and wants to find a place they can just run the application and it would guide and show them places without going through the process of using their Google maps or any kind of map. Yet, once again, this can bring some critical AR technical abilities and can create a place in which it comes to know every little detail about the user whereabouts. On the other hand, it has created a better way to train “U.S. Marine Corps” soldiers with AR technology. This might not be true because their training is a simulation. There is no guarantee they can fight without fear but “[t]he marines worked faster with…AR program than with laptop-based manuals,” this means that they learn faster and can understand what’s going on because they are working on it in an augmented reality. It is not just some people think that “AR adds to the toll that distracting technologies take on personal interaction.” It is the consequences that it can bring if immersing [oneself]” would isolate the person in real life. Keep in mind that some people, users, and players feel more alive in the virtual world than in the real world, therefore, having such technology might help them to love the world in which they were born. People are being watched even if they don’t like it. There are cameras in stores, in streets and even in our own homes. Phone applications are more intrusive than ever before. The terms of service are always changing, but even so is the desired for more technology. Today more and more applications are requiring access to our phones’ cameras and microphones and what consumers do is agree to everything they want to access in order to get a little taste of what it is to have such apps. Rory Celian-Jones is a technology correspondent from BBC News; in his new article called “Blippar wants your face in its app” he introduced the application that will use facial recognition. This new application will be able to capture a person’s face and let the user know the name and personal information. “[t]he app will also recognize people – in real life or in photos and videos.” Nobody is going to feel more secure and more well observe than with this app from Blippar.
This brings an ethical concern not only for the user, but also for everyone who might get their face saved in the app. It will be recognized and give away personal information that only the user should have access to. The implementation and the addition of “more than 70,000 “public figures” recognizable by the app” means that at any moment everyone who has Bliippar will be able to identify and recognize someone’s “social media profiles and Wikipedia entries.” At the same time looking at this at a different prospective, the app will come in handy in circumstances that are in need of identification. Calian-Jones gives some examples of why people should be feeling uneasy about this kind of app. To begin with, nobody likes the idea of “a stranger … com[ing] up to you and scan[ning] your face to find out more about you”. Having your own face in a pool of pictures ready to be selected is kind of creepy. Not only that, but people will be at risk of being followed and have a higher risk of being targeted by others. Even Google knew that having that feature in Google Glass was an intrusion to privacy. It is good to know that Blippar takes their users into consideration and the people that might be affected by such an app by letting them decide whether or not they want their face stored on Blippar’s servers. Something that I found interesting is that Celian-Jones mentioned something so true to everyone. It is not clear “why people will find facial recognition compelling”, but as people get older and as many begin to forget who they are, it can help them know who they are and where they live. If this technology is used well it can become a great benefit to older people and for the police to find criminals. It is intrusive, but people get used to this kind of technology everyday, before people weren’t confortable walking down the street because their every move was being watched and recorded, now this app is going to have the same capabilities to do that but in a faster way. People are being watched even if they don’t like it. There are cameras that are constantly recording every action and every word we say in public. The ethical dilemma is whether the consumer and people have a say in this matter. They can oppose the use of such technology but they can’t if they don’t know the implications that it may have. Cameras are everywhere and people are getting used to them. The new generations don’t care whether they are being recorded or not they just want to have the newest technology. These days there are many who have given up their privacy for the excitement and entertainment that technology brings to them. In the article “Amazon Go stores could watch, listen, and remember your every move” by Natt Garun, it is mentioned that the latest Amazon product “Amazon Go” is a product that can reach to the customers. This product is said to decrease the lines to pay, instead of waiting to pay in-line, the customers have the option to pay using their own mobile devices. This product does not only promote self check out, it takes away the customers’ privacy.
As it is described in the article, the system in which the app will run with is a system in which the user will be able to use Amazon Go, once the application starts running, the user will be under constant watch in the grocery store from the moment they step into the door. It will also identify who the user is based on their ID card that’s associated with their Amazon account. It’s not just a personal intrusion but an invasion towards privacy. The company and the third parties that come with the application will be able to collect more than enough information to know everything and anything from its users and the people surrounding them. Facial recognition should also be for government use only. The reason is because if companies are beginning to use facial recognition to determine the account holder then it is considered stalking as well. Ethics does not only lie within the intrusion of privacy but that it can lead to personal information being stolen right in front of the consumer’s eyes. It also can leave people without a job, because if consumers can buy without waiting in line and just do it by phone, the future will have no cashiers and everything will be paid by users’ accounts. The author of this article mentioned something notable about Amazon Go,” the fact that Amazon knows what you’re buying and who you are down to your skin color and this is pretty next-level market research data.” It is also kind of creepy to know that an application can know what the user is buying and how cameras will be implemented to confirmed any kind of purchasing. However, it is not clear if this application will be able to determine the owner of the amazon account being used for purchasing. “The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and the other begins?”—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Premature Burial”
The lifespan of a human being is short and fragile. Many if not at the beginning, middle, or end of their life began to think, what can I do to be remembered? Not so long ago, having a place to rest the dead was the only thing that would matter. A place for the family to visit that was destined to be the resting place for the family when the time comes. Yet, currently that is not an option, with so much technology taking over, DeadSocial is the option. Jenny Kleeman from The Guardian mentioned that plans for the afterlife are beginning to involve social media. People spend so much time in their social media that this has led to a different way to be remembered. For example, Facebook has a memorial, when one of its users dies and the family decides to cancel the deceased’s account, what Facebook does is convert the user’s page into a memorial page. Assuming their terms and conditions do not allow the family to make any kind of changes to the user’s account, they are only creating a memorial with proof (death certificate). Likewise, twitter has its own term of services. Tweeter, “will keep [the user’s] Twitter feed alive by analyzing… old tweets.” Is it ethical to have a social media memorial (grave) instead of an actual funeral? Some people think that this is not the case anymore. “[T]he internet is not going anywhere. All…digital content and archived information will be [available]” This is still something new in social media. There is no guarantee that the information provided to DeadSocial, Facebook or any other media won’t be removed. Also, what if the data gets corrupted, accounts get hacked and the privacy of a dead person is now in the hands of media companies. What kind of rules need to be followed? Keeman also mentioned that there are two ways people are defined, first some people say their “goodbyes in their own way”, this means that their funeral is the classical version, they only need people to remember who they were and their grave stone. The second type, is the type that likes to live on virtually, with never ending friendships. Ethically, each human being has their own ways to face death and their own that way they want to be remembered, even when the family doesn’t like the idea. The reality of today is as clear as water, many companies pursue the next big investment of their lives, and many gamers pursue the next augmented reality game. Games that can be played not in a virtual world and using a computer, but a game in which they can interact with actual players and places in the real world. As Katherine Cross mentioned in her article “Augmented Reality Games like Pokémon Go Need Code of Ethics – Now” because it’s becoming a game in which players don’t follow the law. Many players have trespassed on private property and have been arrested for putting others in danger. Cross mentioned also that the game had many flaws and Niantic’s developers have fixed them. Augmented reality lets the user interact with real objects while virtual reality does not. This is one of the few games that use augmented reality, and the one that has raised real-world concerns. First, the harassment that young women have been exposed to, as well as stalking. The Pokémon Go application lets other users know the location of players around them; it also provides places where players can get items to level up. This brings the ethical questions of the harm that a simple and interactive game can do to players of all ages.
The pursuit of an augmented reality has consequences and developers need to act, because if their game causes a player to die “[w]ould Niantic stand up” and take responsibility?” The life of a player is precious, therefore, the game of life and death should be taken seriously. In a virtual reality, it doesn’t matter how many times the user’s avatar dies, it will always come back to life. Harassment and stalking are not the only issues, sex offenders are the big problem this game can have. New York has solved part of this problem already by denying “sex offenders on parole… able to sign up for Pokémon Go and other Internet-enabled games as conditions of their sentence.” The question here is: are other states doing the same? Twenty-two percent of the players who play Pokémon Go are minors and as minors they are easy targets for sex offenders or anyone who has ill intentions. It is the developer's right to decide and make changes as they see fit. When it comes to this kind of game, developers should take it as a serious matter. They are the ones who make the rules and who create the environment in which the player must feel safe. As the New York senators mentioned on NPR, the city has an agreement with at least “40 social media and related technology companies” that have an updated record of registered sex offenders, but there is no agreement with social media platform. In fact, it is said that Niantic’s developer was contacted and was offered an agreement to protect children and others from sex offenders. Snopes.com mentioned that the developer actually came up with a good idea to let players know when a sex offender is a mile away from them. The Pokémon will “let out a full-throat howl through [the] phone’s speakers, letting [the player know] to stay alert.” Nevertheless, the developer should consider augmented reality as an important part of life that needs to be taken seriously. The importance to be able to make decisions has made many wonder if it is okay to be under surveillance and give up their freedom. The protection that is being offered is not always the best solution, but it’s the best that can be provided by the government. In the “controversial snooping technology ‘used by at least seven police forces’” by David Peg and Rob Evans, it is mentioned that under certain circumstances the use of IMSI catcher is necessary to track and hunt down criminals. The issue here is that many don’t have an idea of what IMSI is and why the police are using it. IMSI catcher is an “international mobile subscriber identity technology” leading officers to rely on and buy this type of software to arrest criminals. However, this kind of software is an “intrusion into the private lives of many innocent individuals” who do not have a criminal history, but are also targeted. If these devices track individuals and gather information, of course it will bother citizens and this is the reason the police denied using them.
Moreover, it’s not just the police, but the government, and its citizens and everyone is and was being heard and recorded. How did the people find out they were not trusted by their own government? This happens when police begin to illegally wiretap others. It is very controversial, having the police acting like criminals. Yet, when looking at it from a different perspective, the police are trying to keep up with new technology and doing what they can to catch the bad guys out in the streets. Many people don’t care and don’t really know what is going on around them, they prefer to be protected, no matter at what price. Another, issue is the way police handle IMSI and wiretapping. As it is mentioned by Brad Heath and Brett Kelman in their article “Police used apparently illegal wiretaps to make hundreds of arrests” in Riverside California. They violated federal law in their unauthorized use of wiretapping, maybe many knew their phone was being wiretapped and others didn’t care because they think they have nothing to hide. Everyone has something to hide and everyone has secrets that nobody wants others to know about. It is the same with every single human being around the world. In Riverside California, the justice department of that county decided the authorization requirement of wiretapping. So, if the justice department decides it, wouldn’t they know that police’s massive operation can “jeopardize prosecutors’ ability to use the surveillance in court”? It is well described by both authors that this kind of surveillance damages the police’s reputation and trust that its people have put into them. At the same time, it protects them from danger and criminals, the police should let the truth about the use of IMSI become known. Given that they have a better chance that the public will take it for their own sake. There should be rules on how surveillance should be used and how much of the information recorded by it should be kept or destroyed. Who doesn’t love to play video games and online games? Everyone does. In a game, everything is possible to accomplish if there is effort and time. There are things that, in the real world are not possible, simple things such as public speaking, collaborating with others and expressing oneself. Of all the possible technological advances that are coming out, virtual reality has taken the top choice of many gamers. Virtual reality (VR) lets its users create their own world, worlds in which only they have the authority to do whatever they want. Yet, without authority there is nothing that someone can do if they begin to confuse reality with virtual reality. The integration of VR into real life has many users happy. Now, it’s easier than ever before to meet people around the world without being ashamed of oneself, or to speak up and say what’s on our minds. “[V]irtual reality… will greatly enhance education, science, industry, art, and entertainment.”
Moreover, it’s not just the change and the advantage of having VR to enhance society, but the issue is that, this brings “physical and mental problems” too. VR doesn’t just happen, it must be programmed, and with the new devices hitting the market comes changes in the brain. The human brain is an extraordinary organ that has millions if not billions of circuits (neurons) to make the body functional. Another issue is that VR can “alter the way people perceive the real world”, users’ (players) can confuse both worlds. Their conscious can make them think that the world their living is the virtual world and not the real one. This is because users who are getting affected are the ones who are living the game online and not living their real life outside the game. In the article “Which World? The Future of Virtual Reality”, some of the ethical issues that are encounter by VR and its communities are explained in greater depth. Not only that, but it mentions that people who play in this kind of game are not always the asocial groups that cannot express themselves to others openly. This means that VR can be dangerous but it can also help those who are not capable of building relationships with others. Then again, it is an issue that anyone playing or living in a virtual word cannot fully interact with a human being. In a virtual world, users also have the option of creating their avatar. An avatar is a character that is created in the likeness of whoever created them. This raises the ethical dilemma of whether it is right or not “to see others, as beautiful or fantastic” implying that in the real world human beings are placed in categories of being ugly, beautiful, smart, dumb, losers and others. It creates prejudice against those who are not looking for perfection but to bring meaning to their lives. VR can not only create prejudice but also isolate its users from what’s really going on in the real world. The article also mentioned that gamers have gone as far as to kill themselves rather than giving up their activity. This has gone far from a simple game and simple technological advancement to a phycological trauma. Developers and engineers should be implementing laws and rules that are applicable to the user. If users want to keep living a long healthy life they should put their health first above all. |
AuthorI transferred to CSUMB in the Spring 2016 from Hartnell Community College. I'm currently working towards my bachelor's in Network and Security and minor in Business Administration. Archives
December 2016
Categories |