Living in the Age of AI

Artificial Intelligence is on the rise and automating lives. In fact, women's careers are at the highest risk as typical jobs such as cashiers and assistants can be easily automated. While the advancement of technology excites some, it terrifies others. In the second hour of this informative Frontline video, I learned a lot about data privacy and the surrounding dangers in the United States and Internationally. 

To my previous knowledge, companies and their AI technologies have a good amount of data on their users, and the Frontline video informed me how. It's explained that AI is trying to adapt to the user, so the users have personalized experiences. It was thought-provoking when the speaker said, "We aren't using social media, social media is using us". This factor alone could be a threat to important data. Paired with the concept of "digital exhaust", the data we leave behind when we browse and search, could lead to national security threats. Not only is digital exhaust a security threat, but it's also a revenue increase for companies like Google. Digital exhaust is valuable data because it predicts what a user might click on. Over a couple of years, this led to a dramatic increase in Google's revenue. This leads to the topic of "surveillance capitalism", which claims to be a private human experience but can be turned into fabricated human behavior, which is utilized by businesses because they want to know our future behaviors. Again, this is another topic that puts an individual's online security and identity at risk.

The power AI has overseas really concerns me. The Frontline video touched on the surveillance systems in China, they’re on a mission to deploy over 6 million cameras, including on every street. China's government is authoritative so this doesn't shock me, but their data mining capabilities are concerning. The video even had a section about U.S. surveillance and monitoring systems. This of course is in-home computers, cameras, speakers, and voice-activated systems. These are all optional systems which I stray away from because I think they're very intrusive and gather too much personal information, making room for security and identity risk. Circling back to China, one aspect of their surveillance system really surprised me. In the northwest region of China, a group of people called the Uighurs reside there. Through surveillance, the Chinese government and authorities determine if individuals are prone to terrorism and send them to re-education camps. In a way, our government surveils who browses dangerous ideas and concepts as well. But it is frightening seeing the surveillance power China wields and what they do with it. 

I felt informed about the rise of AI by watching the Frontline video, but it left me with privacy concerns. So much information about myself is left behind simply by performing a Google search. The surveillance tools have the potential to do great things in the right hands, but I don't foresee great outcomes with this technology in the wrong hands.