Final Blog Post

     

        

    The 21st century has led to technology becoming the dominant form of interaction, communication, and entertainment for people all over the world. Growing up in this era, technology has always been a big part of my life. I have to watch old films or read books written in the past to truly understand a world that was not dominated by machines. It has become almost impossible to avoid technology. If you do not use it, you are missing out on so much society has to offer. According to Datareportal, 4.88 billion people around the world use the internet. That means 62% of the world is online, a number that would have seemed crazy twenty years ago. However, it has to be asked if this is good how much we are using technology? Are we becoming too dependent on technology to the point where if we were to lose it for a week we would cease to exist as a society? Yes and no. Technology has opened up communication between people all over the world, forming friendships and bringing people together. It has also emboldened an online toxic culture where we can say whatever we want to people behind a keyboard and face no consequences for it. 

    

    My relationship with technology is a complicated one. I love it, but I also hate it. I love being able to take my phone, which serves as a telephone, camera, and computer all at once everywhere I go. It is awesome to be able to do school work and look up any information I need on a computer. I can watch a football game on a massive-sized television, giving me the illusion I am actually at the stadium. According to techjury, people check their phones around 63 times a day. On average we spend 5.4 hours on our phones daily. This is just our phones. If we include other technologies, such as computers and television, the time we spend with technology is much worse. I am not going to lie and say I am not like this. I am on my phone a lot throughout the day. I use the computer several times a day. To be honest, as I am writing this blog, I am watching football. There is no way this is healthy. The CDC says that only 23 percent of Americans are exercising enough. If we did not have all of this really cool technology right at our fingertips, that number would be much lower. I do not exercise enough and technology has a lot to do with that. Technology also affects my relationship with school. I get my work done and turned in on time. However, I would get it done much quicker if I was not distracted by my phone. Phones affecting how school work is done do not just impact me. Earlier this year I worked at a community center with students learning online because of Covid. I tutored students from first grade through eighth grade. All of them, except for the first graders, had phones and would use them while listening to their teachers. Technology has created a world where it is ok for second graders to be on their phones when they should really be developing as students.

    

    It is hard to know what the balance should be for the amount of time we use technology. If I were to make a pact to stop using technology so much it would be hard for me to function. I cannot leave my phone at home when I go out. It serves as my map for getting around. If there were an emergency that needed to be taken care of, I would not know about it if I left my phone at home. Technology is also how we stay informed about what is going on in the country and around the world. We do not have to wait for a newspaper or watch tv to hear the news. Our phones give us access to news quickly. A study from Pew revealed that eight out of ten Americans get news from digital devices. This gives power to social media apps and news sources to present the news in a way that benefits the people they want it to benefit. Google and Facebook have been known to manipulate the algorithms to highlight stories to readers that support their causes. Technology becomes another way for the people in control to manipulate us. I do not think there is a way to stop this problem. Some people do not care that they are being manipulated by technology. Other people support what these companies are doing and hope they do it even more aggressively than they are now. Unless people stop using these social media apps or websites and it begins to hurt these companies’ bottom lines, nothing will change.

    

    Technology does not just affect the individual, it affects our family and friends. The smartphone has given us a tool to communicate with people we care about wherever they are in the world. We can see what they post on Facebook or Instagram and feel like we were there with them. I am able to stay in touch with people I went to high school with through what they are posting online. Skype, FaceTime, and Zoom let us have face-to-face interaction with individuals or groups of people anywhere at any time. Technology has allowed some of my family members to work from home. They can do everything they need to do on the computer or on the phone. Unfortunately, the same issues that apply to me happen with friends and family. They to can become addicted to technology. Some of my friends seem like they are always online. That is not good for either their physical or mental health. Technology can divide us. The country is more politically divided than at any other time before. I have gotten into arguments with people over different political opinions. This is caused by who we follow and what websites we get our information from. In my opinion, the divide is going to become even greater. Social media is only going to make us more steadfast in our views, to the point where there could be no room for civil discussion in the future.

    

    While I use technology as a tool for communication and entertainment, I limit what and how often I post online. The internet is not going anywhere. Everything we say will be documented in history. We can try to delete something, but it will never truly go away. I do not want to say something that will get me in trouble so I try not to say anything at all. I also like to keep my opinions to myself. I do not really care what other people my age have to say about issues happening in the world and I am sure they do not care what I have to say either. If I were to say something stupid, it could have disastrous consequences. Over the years there have been countless examples of people getting in trouble for what they said on social media in the past. An example of this is Josh Hader. He is a baseball pitcher who got in trouble for things he said in high school ten years earlier. What he said was terrible and he should have to answer for what he said. I am using this story to show how people will find what you said in the past and make you answer for it. I have and will continue to be careful with what I post online as I do not want what I say online to negatively affect me or my family.

Living in the Age of AI

    

     Technology is changing rapidly whether we like it or not. Innovators are making new things at a rate that could not have been fathomed fifty years ago. Artificial Intelligence is the newest technology that is being created. The people funding and creating the technology are telling us that they are creating new things for our own good. They say these things will make our lives easier and will help us in new ways. However, they never tell us the downside of their creations. Are the things being made safe? Do they actually benefit us or people we never see? What happens if we make technology that is smarter than the human brain can fathom? The film In the Age of AI shows us what happens when technology keeps advancing. The film argues that the United States and China are in a battle for supremacy when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. The film compares it to an arms race. As history has shown, arms races are always great and have no long-lasting consequences. According to Bloomberg, AI is America's "Achilles Heel" when it comes to China. The two countries are trying to be the leaders in the field even if they do not fully understand what they are doing or the precedent it sets.  

    Several things surprised me about the documentary, both positively and negatively. It is shocking how quickly new things are being made. One of the positive impacts of more complex AI is how convenient things are. We can unlock our iPhones by simply putting the phone up to our face. Things can be paid for by using your fingerprints or having your face identified. Self-driving cars are becoming mainstream to help prevent traffic accidents and carry products across the country 24/7. A doctor in the film argued that this advanced technology can help spot cancer earlier and decide what the next steps should be. These are all positives that come with technology that should be celebrated.

    While there are definitely positives that arise with technology, the film does a good job of showing the flaws of AI. Computers are being designed to defeat men in games such as AlphaGo. This sets a precedent for creating something smarter than us. What happens if the machine continues to evolve past what we can comprehend? We will most likely not be able to stop the machine from doing whatever it wants. China has developed a system where the computer can judge by how quickly a person types as to whether to give them a loan or not. They are trying to take the human element out of the decision-making, just giving anyone a loan if they know how to hack the system. We give these companies all of our information in exchange for access to their services. It is very convenient to let Google store our passwords. They can be hard to remember and this is the best way to not forget them. However, we are giving Google way too much information about us and we open ourselves up to be hacked. The final problem that the AI age is bringing is how we are actively getting rid of jobs for people and placing them with machines. Some have argued that government policies today are being designed to cut out the middle class and make people more reliant on the government. If that is the goal, replacing man with machines with a factory is a great way to start. No one should be ok with people losing their job through no fault of their own. Technology is here to stay. It provides several goods but also several bad qualities. We have to be careful to not let it overtake every aspect of our lives.