I know overall technology has its pros and cons, good and bad, and you could debate about whether it is good or evil all day long. However, I love technology. I think overall it has a positive impact as a whole in my life. My two primary interests in my life are music and sports (mostly college and pro basketball, although I have a lesser interest in college football and the NFL). I spend time watching endless hours of live sports, watching replays of sports, watching endless commentary by broadcasters about sports, and watching athletes recall plays from their sports. I have a podcast with my friends about the NBA. None of this would be possible without technology.
I also spend hours everyday listening to music and reading things in the music world. Without technology I would not have music services like Apple Music and Spotify that have brought every song or album I could ever want right to my fingertips. I would also argue that, without the invention of technology, a lot of artists I listen to wouldn’t even be artists. The reason I say that is because in the old days to be a good musician you had to be a good singer or be good at playing an instrument. Today that is not the case. Technology has allowed people who are not good at singing to use autotune to make themselves sound good. It has also allowed people who sound good to sound even better with new technology. I love Apple Music and Spotify and follow all of my favorite artists on every conceivable platform and know every song they drop and every bit of news or gossip about how they wrote their songs or when their next song or album will drop. Technology has also made me not want to spend money to go to concerts. I can watch live music straight from my computer.
Now, let me talk about my digital footprint. Even though I said earlier in this post that I love technology, I am not a social media fan. I do not have a large presence on any social media platforms. The only social media platform I use regularly is Instagram. However, even on Instagram I do not have a single post up for the outside world to see. I am aware and hesitant to put too much information online. This course has made me extremely wary of my online presence and guarding my personal privacy as much as possible.
In terms of the information regarding the final post prompt, the writings about television when it began in the 1950s promised that it would bring us together as a country, would expose us to all that was good in the world, and that we would watch Shakespearian plays and symphonies perform classical music all day long. Has some good come from television-of course! Has it been all good? Of course not.
In the same way, modern technology and the internet are neither all bad nor all good. Yes, the first video (click here- '64-65 NY World's Fair FUTURAMA Ride Video - if you want to watch!) we had to watch for this post about the 1964-65 World’s Fair shows us many wondrous things that HAVE come to pass in the last 60 years. The vehicles on the moon were very similar to what NASA actually produced for the moon launches. There really are space stations. Many more people do live in the desert now and we have found ways to pump water to them. But many more items they promised in the video have not resulted. We do not go stay at underwater hotels often and there are no submarines harvesting food or bringing up barrels of oil from the depths of the ocean. We do not have combination laser beam and paving trucks that pave a road in the jungle in minutes in one step.
The truth of the good or bad of technology lies somewhere in between. The other video we had to watch to create this post, titled the Mad World video (click here to watch - Mad World Remix of Moby Video Are You Lost In The World Like Me - if you interested in the video!) is a wake up call to our entire society. While the internet provides us immediate access to information and entertainment, when we become addicted to the point that we ignore the people and events that go on around us or attempt to be something we are not (putting on filters so it look like we live in a mansion when we live in a tent), we are damaging our very souls and are embracing a lie instead of the beautiful things in life. The Steve Cutts video from 2012 we also had to watch for this post (click here to watch - MAN - if you are interested in the video!) reminds us that we only have one world to live in, and as we destroy it, we destroy ourselves and our children (even if aliens are not the final authority on whether we live or die).
Let me close this post by talking about artificial intelligence and online privacy. Artificial Intelligence will change the world. It will change how we retrieve and share information. ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, will allow anyone to prepare a high school level paper on any subject in a matter of minutes. It will change the job market and transform entire industries. There will be many blue collar jobs that will be eliminated because of artificial intelligence. AI will not get sick or have family troubles or not want to be at work. AI will work 24/7 365 without errors.
AI will result in autonomous vehicles (Tesla) that will change driving and traffic and transportation forever. There will be robot tutors who will assist teachers and enhance the quality of education. There will be a huge impact in health care. Robots will increase the perfection of surgery and will also streamline the communication and scheduling process. In terms of policing drones will allow police to have more information about criminals and perhaps save lives in standoff or ongoing crime situations. In terms of wars drones will continue to be used in wars and dramatically change what a war looks like, hopefully reducing blood shed.
With all of these changes we need to be concerned about our privacy and online security. How much does Amazon know about what goes on in our homes or what we talk about or search for on our cell phones? If we consciously share the information, that is one thing, but if Alexa “hears” that we are going to buy a new TV and then sends us 50 ads on Facebook about Tvs to buy, that is something different. Most importantly, Alexa knowing what we say in our homes matters because it is a small step to what the government knows about us, our thoughts and our plans.
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