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Future Science: How will Big Data be Used in the Future?
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How about in Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds? The whole idea of an entire population being monitored for any violent thought and being stopped... that was really creepy.
'Augmented' humans. I haven't read Blue Remembered Earth yet, but from reading the description and friend reviews, it sounds like it falls within that continuum of giving up privacy for convenience.I've always been personally dodgy about posting too much personal stuff on social media. My name is a pen name. My picture is an Avatar. I keep my 'family' accounts separate from my sociable ones (and locked down privacy wise). And I keep me-me, lawyer-me, and author/sociable-me separated into three entirely different worlds. I write N.O.Y.F.B. on any application which asks for too much information (none of your f-ing business). And yet ... how can you meet and interact with far-flung friends without the wonderful convenience of social media?
Anyways ... food for thought. It was a good TED:Talk, and very science-fiction oriented.
The UK government is linking more and more databases together to 'streamline' processes with the aim of saving money. Police cameras can snap a car's registration number and instantly know who the keeper is and whether the vehicle is taxed and insured. The new social security benefit system, Universal Credit, uses direct links to income tax records. And that's before you get into the Home Office plans to monitor email traffic...
In the USA the NSA is -already- monitoring email traffic. I'm also a writer, so I'm sure I'm on a half a dozen terrorist watchlists for looking up how to make Greek Fire using materials available in 3,500 BC as well as a whole bunch of other weird stuff. :-P I understand the need to streamline some government functions, but at some point it becomes too Big Brother. I'm less bothered by legitimate government streamlining of things like retirement/tax issues, but in the video the scientist pointed out a lot of this technology is available to big businesses. Now THAT is scary.
Government is the biggest big business, so you should be very worried about them as well.
Aaron wrote: "Government is the biggest big business, so you should be very worried about them as well."Oh, agreed! My point was I'm less worried about the government cross-checking its OWN databases (i.e., to cross reference government benefits with actual tax returns to make sure somebody isn't scamming the taxpayers) than I am with this kind of data falling into private hands. At some point, the government is ultimately responsible to the voters if something bad comes to light, while big business is only beholden to their shareholders.
Between the two, I'm always aware of the fact that it's the government that has the guns.
Good point, Ken. Though at least here in the USA, there's still a lot of private citizens who also still have guns. Overall, the oversharing of data is a pretty disturbing trend no matter who is accessing the information, and I think it's something people need to be aware of and discuss.
You're right about the collection and sharing of data, but between civilian guns and government guns, I think the winner of that contest is pretty obvious.
Ken don't forget the alarming increase in private military organizations that recruits mostly from U.S. special forces ranks. I'd argue in many western countries, the line between corporate and government in regards to private military contractors is very blurred. Since 911 private mercenary companies have been playing much larger roles in the U.S. war machine.
And in the meantime, they don't pay our soldiers jack-$#!t (and I'm saying that as a mother whose daughter just recently finished up four years in the Army).
Think they don't pay anything now? You should have seen my army paycheck after I was drafted in 1965. It was less than my $70/month car payment. At least the Army is volunteer now, so you have a choice.
[*oof*][*Ken wins*]
Yup ... agree 100% with soldiers underpaid.
Space Opera Fans
Books mentioned in this topic
Blue Remembered Earth (other topics)True Names: and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier (other topics)
Brave New World (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Alastair Reynolds (other topics)Vernor Vinge (other topics)
Aldous Huxley (other topics)
Have you ever wondered if all that stuff you post on Facebook or Tweet or Tumblr or Instagram could be used against you in novel ways? I just watched a TED:Talk by Alessandro Acquisti, Associate Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University who just completed two (2) separate scientific studies, one on the use of facial recognition software, the second on how social media data can be used to 'guess' your social security number. I strongly suggest you first spend 15 minutes to watch his TED:Talk:
HERE: http://www.upworthy.com/a-creepy-talk...
Okay ... now the sci-fi discussion part:
In the 2002 movie Minority Report, Tom Cruise walks into a shopping mall while he's on the run and the computers start targeting advertisements at him. Fast forward to 2014 and we're all used to getting shown targeted advertisements when we web-surf and don't think much about it, but could that same data be used in more insidious ways?
I once had the privilege of attending a talk by science fiction author Vernor Vinge where he talked about his book True Names: and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier and the emergence of a meta-consciousness, of ordinary humans pooling their collective knowledge through a central database to solve problems greater than the whole. Mr. Vinge was wonderfully optimistic that this 'meta-consciousness' could lead to great leaps in problem-solving for humanity and his enthusiasm was infectious.
But the dark side of that is who controls that data?
In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Huxley postulated a world where every single fact about a person was known and engineered from conception until death. Then they discover Savage, a man who grew up isolated from all this social engineering and knowledge, and while at first he embraces the novelty of all that convenience, in the end he rejects it, choosing to be unhappy rather than appeased.
"But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin..." Brave New World
So back to the TED:Talk - Privacy vs. Convenience:
How can that kind of computing power that Alessandro Acquisti just revealed ALREADY EXISTS in the TED:Talk be impacting our decisions right now? How can the things we freely reveal about ourselves be used against us? And ... how can this emerging science, both the positive side as postulated by Vernor Vinge, and the dark side as just revealed in real-life by Acquisti and books such as Brave New World be used in upcoming (and newer) science fiction novels?
Okay Space Opera Fans! Most of you guys are a heck of a lot smarter than me. Discuss! Argue (within reason). Good or evil? And what nefarious plots would you like to see in future Space Opera themed books as all this big data is carried out into space?
Please discuss...
Anna Erishkigal
P.S. - If you don't have time to read, you can watch Brave New World in its entirety for free HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlb1b...