Technology is increasingly shaping our world but humanity can’t be programmed
Iguess we’re still in control, us humans, of the impacts (intended or otherwise) of advancing technology on our lives, but I’m not sure, and it certainly seems it may not be so forever.
Will technology be friend or foe? Beyond obvious purposes, what does it, can it, replace?
Apple’s new iPhone X will use Face ID to replace the “oh, so ’80s” idea of a password to unlock the phone and authorise payments. Thank goodness. I’m sick and tired of trying to remember all the passwords I so cleverly create to avoid being hacked by using my children’s names or my date of birth, and you can’t forget a face, you know, especially your own.
Essentially, you load up a “detailed depth map” (read: all the creases and crevices) of your face and thereafter your device compares the “you” in front of it, to the you it has stored, and you’re in!
This is by no means a first for Apple, which prides itself in commercially perfecting the original ideas of others. Hundreds of thousands of firms and people use facial biometrics already — annual world revenues are approaching $500m.
So, what’s the big deal? Well, the way I see it, once your face is “captured”, so to speak, you no longer have much say over what it gets used for whereas you have to actually, purposefully, voluntarily, physically offer up your finger to use your fingerprint as a key.
It’s useful, and scary. I attended a conference in China recently, a high-security event, where, once registered, carrying your tag around was superfluous. As I approached the entrance every morning, I was recognised by a computer, from quite some distance and an image of me appeared on the security officer’s screen for him to decide whether to welcome or apprehend me. Efficient, sure, but also invasive. No more queues at rugby stadiums. I’m sure they can screen you in groups.
But … machines can’t really beat chess masters, because they can’t think, yet? Machines can process volumes of data, quickly, so they can choose between logical alternatives and then make a move, but they can’t think! If you know a shortcut, you can really have some fun with that annoying direction giver in an Uber. Advise the driver of your route and then sit back and wait for “in 200 metres, make a U-turn”.
When you go to a mall, physical or virtual, some machine will record which shops you lingered at, whether you smiled or scowled, and where you actually bought something, using the latest “Smile and Pay” technology, courtesy Alibaba.
Of course, there’s a lot of virtue in these developments. We can track known terrorists, identify all manner of baddies – excessive drinkers, gamblers, exes, the list goes on. At least I’ll be able to stop calling people “boet” as my device prompts me with the names of all the people at the cocktail party.
I can’t wait to see how the regulators deal with all of this stuff. They can’t. Your biometric data may be yours legally, but once you’re on the system you’re in the system — they’ll be playing catch-up.
The debate on whether technology creates or destroys jobs rages on. Taxi drivers certainly don’t think it creates them.
Technology, in healthcare, for those who can afford it, has no doubt extended life expectancy. There may not even be an upper limit, eventually — the target age is now 150. The socioeconomic consequences of that are not all good. Technology is an economic equaliser, through universal price discovery, and digitised source of purchase.
Whether you like it or not, though, there will always be a difference between data, knowledge and experience. Tinder matches profiles, but it can’t create the chemistry of love. Facebook can’t make friends.
Innovation, by definition, isn’t capable of mechanistic propagation. Original thought remains the most valuable, if not the only, measure of intelligence.
The fate of the human species will not be determined by data — computers don’t know courage, integrity, fear or desire … things that differentiate and define us. I am still an individual, I think.
YOUR BIOMETRIC DATA MAY BE YOURS LEGALLY, BUT ONCE YOU’RE ON THE SYSTEM YOU’RE IN THE SYSTEM