Final Post

 Final Post

What does technology mean to me? That's the question I've been facing recently. Over the last couple of months and even years my use in technology has began to grow as I have gotten older. As a game design major my use in technology has become very specific and niche. However I use it everyday and it would be an understatement to say that I could do what I do without technology. With this course I have begun to question a lot of things I took for granted or knew but tried to ignore. Various social media platforms being used to control what large groups of people consume is a scary thought and a harsh reality not many of us are ready to hear. With that being said I have changed a lot of my habits in technology because of what I have learned in recent months.

                                                                 

My Relationship With technology

My relationship with technology is odd because for a large portion of my developmental years I lived in the country side distant from the consumption of everyday media and everyday technologies. Going out and exploring the forest was a norm for me, and in later years I went hunting as a family activity. Of course we had TV and Movies and access to internet but many of these things were hard to access and so I learned to ignore much of what was happening online because I thought it didn't effect me. I just sat around playing video games with various family members and went to YouTube to watch funny videos online. Of course this lead to me not relying on technology as much as others, but as someone who wants to go into the game design industry that is quickly changing. I've always been considered the "tech savvy" member of my family because I understood computers just a bit better. I guess you could say I've always had a love for technology, the modern world has given me a purpose through technology and I'm glad we have it. With that being said I am by no means controlled by the technology I use because of my early years and the disconnection I had from it. I just see it as a tool for entertainment, convenience, and a career path. Which I think that's a more than healthy way to look at it.

My Personal Career and How Technology effects it

Over the years when I was younger I got to plan tons and tons of video games and it made a positive impact on my life. With that being said as I got older I began to look at video games as forms of art and I wanted in on it. So when I was in high school I began to work on learning how to make video games. I wouldn't be where I am today without technology and I'm glad its in my life. Technology has allowed me to live out my dream of making video game worlds and reaching people and giving them a form of entertainment.

                                             

Technologies Effects On Us

Its clear that technology is having an impactful effect, now whether its positive or negative is up for debate. It is my personal belief that we should change our consumption habits of technology otherwise we risk getting overtaken by it.

Many people have expressed their concerns in various ways. One example of the negative side effects of technology can be seen in a video created by a user name Moby. The video speaks a thousand words but has no clear distinct dialogue, it depicts a morbid misuse of technology and how we are all mindlessly walking through our lives just staring at our phones. Which I heavily agree to some extent but I believe are all like this.

I believe that as long as we are mindfully aware that if we misuse technology it can control us we can begin to use technology better because how we use technology like social media on average right now is not healthy. It has led to increase in depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns.

Final Thoughts

Overall I think that our current use of technology should be debated and discussed. Many of the tools we have developed within the last decade have taken over our lives and if we don't change something soon I feel that the depiction shown in Moby's video will be the least of our problems.

I like to think I have a healthy relationship the technology in my life but you often don't notice a problem until its right in your face. We must understand that we can always be better and strive for better things and our use in technology is no different.  

Age Of AI

 What is A.I?

A.I also known as artificial intelligence has become an important part of our lives. Many of us go through our lives without understanding the impact A.I has on our everyday lives. With that being said it's important to understand the technological change A.I is making on our lives by looking at what A.I is, the positive and negative effects it has on our lives we can begin to understand the long term effects A.I will have on us as a species. 

So what is A.I? Well the simple answer is it is intelligence that can compute and process information displaying simulated intelligence. However I feel that this is an oversimplification of what A.I is because there are various types of software and and machines that are used in everyday life that have A.I. To name a few: search engines, recommendation systems, social media, some online games like chess. These are just some of the applications A.I is typically used in our everyday lives.

Pros of A.I

As said above A.I holds a powerful influence over our lives and it continues to improve has we move forward in technological advancements. A.I has helped improve the quality of everyday life in incredible ways. For example the overall efficiency of factory pipeline efficiency has dramatically increased due the fact that factories need less workers and can work 24/7 with minimal repairs needed. This allows people to focus on the things that matter more in life and allow people to continue their lives and progress in new ways that push us forward as a species.

                           

Cons of A.I

With all the good that A.I is doing for us one has to question what is the negative side of A.I? The biggest negative that is caused by A.I is that advancements in A.I technology lead to more advance machines which often leads to the replacement of the working force and cause people to be laid off. This creates an ever growing gap between the lower and higher class and ultimately dissolves the presence of a middle class. Ultimately A.I is a risk that humanity needs to understand and control otherwise we risk being controlled by the companies who control the A.I that is used in everyday life.

EOTO #2 (Learned): Five Eyes

 

During the EOTO presentations there was a lot of really interesting topics discussed but one that really peaked my interest that I knew nothing about was Five Eyes. An intelligence partnership formed in 1946 between the US, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, and Canada. In the past FVEY collected and shared intel on foreign communications from a number of countries. In today's world FVEY is responsible for collecting private communication data on billions of people around the world.

I found it weird that almost no one ever talks about Five Eyes. Being the oldest intelligence partnership in the world you would think they would be well known but they are never mentioned in mainstream media. Of course after some research this is not by accident. Five Eyes does get up to some morally questionable things as you'd expect and this was confirmed with the Snowden leak. After the leak documents were found that suggested FVEY was monitoring citizens that belonged to the partnering countries. A loophole to bypass several mass surveillance laws.

Of course there's a serious privacy problem in the modern world, the governments around the world can keep their hands off our information. They want to know what we are talking about and it's become concerning. Something has to be done. 

I learned a lot during this presentation, I wasn't aware of what our government and Five Eyes were getting up to behind the scenes. I was aware of Edward Snowden and how he leaked national secrets but I had no idea he leaked Five Eyes secrets. There's been no mention of Five Eyes anywhere and that does seem a little ominous. It's stuff like Five Eyes that put me on edge when it comes to sharing information online. We have to be more careful of what we put out there, we don't always know whos looking.

 

EOTO #2: Echo Chambers and Confirmation Bias

 

Echo chambers, they're everywhere nowadays, they are all over social media and news outlets, but what is an echo chamber? Well echo chambers are a reference to when a set of beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication inside a closed system. This can be a very dangerous thing, this is because echo chambers are often centered around one idea that is repeated by like-minded people created a hive mind mentality. It is my belief that echo chambers are to blame for many of the polarizing issues seen within our country today. However, the blame doesn't solely lie with echo chambers, often times echo chambers have a lasting effect on the people that get trapped by them creating a bi-product called confirmation bias. 

 Confirmation bias is when someone deliberately searches for, favor and recall info in a way that supports their beliefs. These two as stated above have caused a polarizing effect across our country. This is because people caught within echo chambers often refuse to research, believe, or even entertain ideas/beliefs that don't belong to the group so no new ideas are circulated. This can most commonly be seen on social media platforms like Twitter. 

With all the bad that echo chambers and confirmation bias cause they are actually very natural human responses. We are social creatures who want nothing more than to have a since of belonging. Homophily by beliefs isn't necessarily a bad thing, it allows people to belong to something. Its just the after effects that we need look at with caution. 

With the creation of social media we just took it for granted like any other technology before it. We haven't taken the necessary precautions to protect ourselves from polarization and now we are paying for it. We have people refusing to believe the truth because they are too brainwashed to believe that maybe they are wrong and with a lot of people thinking that way, it can be very dangerous. As we have seen in recent years the hive mind can become hostile and people can absolutely get hurt.

The only way to combat echo chambers and confirmation bias is to formally sit down and talk things out in a civilized manor. Which could be easier said than done but, it is my belief that we should maybe open up our minds to the possibility that maybe we share common ground as people. There's no reason for the level of hostility seen in recent years.

Privacy

Privacy, something that we seem to have taken for granted. Some time ago we traded our right to total privacy for the ability to use the technology we now take for granted. Never stopping and wondering what actually goes on in the devices we pump full of our personal info. Acting non the wiser we go along not questioning whether we are being monitored or not. Its a scary thought to think about and yet its the reality of the situation we live in.

While watching through some of the TED talks given to us, I became fascinated with one video in particular done by Juan Enriquez that actually brought up an interesting way of thinking about digital footprints. Juan begins the talk by comparing digital footprints to tattoos saying that both are "permeant" and "tell stories". He goes on to say things like the things we say and do online are like "electronic tattoos" once its online it doesn't go away, even if you delete it, it doesn't really go away. 

Juan then states that facial recognition software has improved well enough over the last couple years that it is 84 - 94% accurate. This means its getting harder and harder to completely wipe yourself from digital space. Juan then goes on to explain some of the applications of facial recognition and how in 2012 a website by the name of Face.com was bought by Facebook. Face.com is a API database with as of 2011 18 billion faces. 

Another video that peaked my interest was a TED talk by Finn Lutzow-Holm. In the video he discusses the issue of internet privacy and how easy it is for 3rd parties to access your personal info just because you skipped passed the terms of service and agreed to them. This is a serious issue because not only are companies giving out your info, they are making it easier and easier to spy on you through deception. Companies do this by making it incredibly difficult for the common person to understand what they are doing behind the scenes this way no one tries to dig into what they are doing.

Many of these issues effect the world around us many times I have accepted the terms of service without question. We always joke that people are always listening in on us and yet it doesn't seem like a joke anymore. There are people out in the world with no care for who they hurt and they can very easily gain access to your information and use it to there benefit. All because you blindly accept the technology used in everyday life. It's scary to think that someone at anytime of the day can learn what you look like, where you are and just who you are in general.

Diffusion of Innovations & Instagram

 

Instagram, founded in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger became a social media titan that has taken the world by storm. The ability to share photos and videos with hundreds of thousands of people became quite appealing to the modern generations the app goes beyond just sharing funny photos and videos with all your friends though. There are little things like hashtags, filters, and like system, these all function as methods of keeping you on the app. But why do they appeal to younger generations over older?

Part of the reason for Instagram's growth and success was due to the fall off success from the iPhone. Around the same time Instagram hit the iOS store Apple was releasing the iPhone 4. This allowed users to take some what presentable pictures and post them on Instagram with ease. Within 2 years the app had accumulated about 2 million users and showed no signs of slowing down. 

The ease of access to make quick, appealing looking photos was the selling point of Instagram. Its what made it so interesting to so many users and the reason for part of its success. Its why the "early adopters" and, "early majority" users referenced in the diffusion of innovations theory joined onto Instagram. 

As of right now Instagram has 1.3 billion current users and with all that information its hard to understand it all. It seems like each corner of Instagram has its own microbiome with its own culture that is ever changing. 

However with so many users some still choose not to use Instagram and that can be for many reasons. Some believe the negatives outweigh the positives. Some of these negatives include: addiction, increased stressed levels, body shaming, depression. All of these stem from a problem that social media as a whole has created at that is the images and videos posted are only a fraction of someone's life. This can often times give people a false image of what life is like for the people they follow and this can lead to many mental issues. This problem has been a serious topic for research and discussion within the last decade. 

                                                                             

With all these negatives there are definitely some positives with the creation of Instagram. The most common one said is that it allows us to be more easily connected. Another is it allows us to meet many like minded people we could never have any hope of meeting. These however are easy positives that can be said without thought. I personally believe that Instagram has helped push the art of photography forward in many ways. Making powerful cameras more compact and user friendly.

Personally I believe that Instagram should be used with care, too much of anything can be a bad thing and the same can be said about Instagram. I think users should be more aware of what they are sharing and how much time they are spending on the app. With that being said I do believe that Instagram has made a positive impact on the world as a whole and should be looked at in a positive light. 

EOTO (Learned): The first motion pictures

 While listening to everyone's presentations I started to think about how much I don't know about technology and the history of some of the things we take for granted on a daily basis. This began to fascinate me. Take movies for example, within the last 100 years the film industry has gone from non-existent to a multi-trillion dollar industry with thousands if not hundreds of thousands of options to watch and enjoy. I love movies, the stories that get brought to the big screen always fascinated me growing up.  So when the topic of movies came up I became very interested and wanted to learn as much as I could.

The evolution of motion pictures begins in 1834 with William Homer and the Zoetrope which used the illusion generated by a spinning movement to make the image look as though it was moving. Eventually the technology moved on and advanced more and in 1891 William Dickson and Thomas Edison invented the Kinetoscope. 

The device allowed the user to insert a coin and start a movie to be viewed through the peephole located at the top. The device did surprisingly well even though it was basic in nature. This device would kick-start the movie revolution at the turn of the 20th century. Due to the success of the Kinetoscope movies would go on to be viewed by trillions for generations onward. 

I find it interesting that one device can change the course of humanity so dramatically. To think that there were once people who couldn't view the movies we take for granted nowadays.  

American Outlook On Anti-War sentiment

 

I often found in funny that war could be considered both a good and bad thing. On paper war sounds animalistic, pointless, and brutal. Yet time and time again war has brought a booming economy and times of cultural boom for Americans. This can be seen after WW1 with the roaring 20s and during WW2 when we were brought out of the great depression. With this in mind the US government throughout history has spun it so that they get the public to believe that any war at any given time is "necessary" or "justified". This is because the US government understands one simple thing war equals money and information and in the modern world both equal power. 

Understanding that idea is crucial when looking at how governments work in the modern world and its no surprise that you often don't hear about Anti-war sentiment on mainstream news or across the media in mass. You may occasionally hear some Anti-war protests pop up here or there but after that nothing just silence. This is because the US government manipulates the public in small ways to get us focused on other topics that don't matter. Then when a war pops up they spin the narrative to their benefit. 

Would I say that Anti-war sentiment is non-existent; no, however it would be ignorant to believe that the government isn't trying to line their pockets by pushing for war during times of peace. 

EOTO: Cassette Tapes

 

Developed in 1962 by Lou Ottens under the Dutch company Philips the compact cassette or cassette Tape revolutionized audio recording, music and the spread of media in many ways. The device was originally designed for dictation machines allowed for the recording of audio as well as playable audio more than once. However over time and with more development the technology began to be used for playing music back. The technology did a lot of good for the music and audio world some of it however wasn't all good there were downsides to having easy access to music. Needless to say the cassette tape dramatically changed the world of media.

Pros

There are a lot of pros to the cassette tape, the technology was easy to access due to its small "compact" size which meant it could go virtually anywhere. The small compact device was only a measly 4 by 2.5 inches. Prior to this we had Vinyl records which were large and fragile which made it hard to move around let alone listen to music with considering you had to have a record player to use the thing. 

The next pro cassette tapes had were that due to the way they were made you had 2 sides that could record 2 different audios. This allowed for multiple audios to be recorded and distributed. On top of that each side could play about 30 to 60 minutes of audio depending on the type of cassette tape. That's between 60 and 120 total minutes of play time.

Another pro was cassette tapes eventually become so popular and wide-spread that many vehicles had built in cassette players 

These are just a few of the pros that cassette tapes provide, however it would be ignorant to thing that this wonderful technology didn't have a negative impact on the world in a small way.

Cons

As I said above it would be ignorant to believe that cassette tapes didn't have some negative impact on the world. Besides the massive amount of resources it took to mass produce these small devices the biggest con was the rise of pirating media culture. Due to the portability and the easy access to cassette tapes and audio recording devices it was very easy to copy audio from one cassette tape onto another. This gave rise to pirating culture where people would illegal copy audio most commonly music and put it onto another cassette tape. While there aren't many cons to the cassette tape I feel that fact that the cassette tape practically started the media pirating business its pretty big and should be looked at.

Besides the impact the cassette tapes had on the world and how it dramatically changed how we produce and even see music the device only lasted 25 years and it was replaced by a titan in the media world that is only now just being replaced and that would be the CD. 

The cassette tape dramatically altered how we see music and it is my belief that the cassette tape began the modernization of music that we know today.

 

 

Eight Values of Free Expression

 Over the years I've grown up and advanced my education the saying "Marketplace of ideas" keeps popping up and it always intrigued me. The idea originally coined by English Poet John Milton states that in a free thinking system no matter what the truth will always emerge from a competition of thoughts and ideas, the truth always finds a way out. Even though the idea was originally published of back in 1644 I believe that now more than ever we need to understand this idea.  

With all this free speech being thrown around                                                                                               in today's world its hard to understand what is true and what isn't.   

  News stations spinning the truth to sound entertaining at the cost of being 100% truthful,                            confirmation bias and echo chambers everywhere. It can be very overwhelming to try and find the truth amongst all this free speech. However I can't help but notice that John Milton's philosophy on how the truth always finds a way is true. No matter how many lies or half truths are said the truth always finds a way out. Now what people choose to believe is a completely different story which is where the problem with echo chambers lie. You can shout from the rooftops speaking the truth yet time and time again there's always people who don't believe the truth because they are so set on what they believe is the "truth" that they refuse to see the real truth. 

It's my belief that the truth is under attack. Many people nowadays want to belong to something, to an idea even if it isn't their own, and they are willing to sacrifice the truth for it. It seems like no one wants to reasonably talk things out and try to find the truth as John Milton stated. It is also my belief that John Milton's idea of "the truth shall prevail" is slowly becoming diluted. In the past the government has with held the truth and the people were truth-seekers but what happens when the people no longer want the truth. These are confusing times where lots of change is happening the freedom of expression has been overtaken by confirmation bias, polarized ideas, and echo chambers. It seems like it is getting harder and harder to seek the truth.

                                                                                                                                                         

Supreme Court US

The US Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court, the highest court on the federal level of the US government is tasked with overseeing the judicial branch, keeping the executive and legislative branches in check, and handling the highest level of federal cases. 

After looking into the Supreme Court using History.com I came to realize that I don't know much about the US Supreme Court. For example I didn't know that the Justice's of the Supreme Court were nominated by the President and elected by the Senate. The Supreme Court has a very important history that many people often take for granted including myself. This is led me down a rabbit hole of personal thought that made me question just how much do everyday people like you and me actually know about the government and what goes on in D.C. Probably the most important take away from my research has the highest jurisdiction over all laws within the United States. This can be scary if you think about it just a handful of selected individuals that are in office for life control the laws we live under.

Bouncing off of what I said in above about the Supreme Court having all the power over the laws here in the United States. That is probably the most surprising thing I learned about the Supreme Court, that seems like a lot of power to give one branch of the federal government and that doesn't include the other powers given to the Judicial system. 

After watching part 1 and part 2 of the videos my opinion on the Supreme Court didn't change much. However it did give me insight into what goes on in the Supreme Court on a daily basis which I had know understanding to prior to the video.