Technological innovation for me is the way of bringing positive changes in the mode of consumption and production then it used to be before. So, what does it mean, let’s see, way back when I was at the immigration lobby of my country waiting for an hours-long line to get clearance from that almighty officer, I was often pissed off and irked, the opportunity cost was high as my prospective earnings from my meetings were enormous. Now its Eureka, we had a newly installed kiosk machine, where every data has been fed-in, as I reached there, I swapped my card and got clearance, indeed it was prompt and saved my time. You know, it was good for the immigration department also, their labor requirement should have gone done drastically.
These “C-Suits” terminologies like artificial intelligence, big data, block-chain and augmented reality are definitely bringing economic of scales but it is also risking the human current status. As per the World Economic Forum by 2022 due to the rise of technological innovation 75 million job will be outdated making people poorer (Cann, 2018), do you agree? But it will also add 133 million for new kind of jobs, but the question triggers who will invest in the transition of those 75 million losers into 133 million gainer club.
No doubt, tech innovation brings security, a peace in my mind, when I sleep, switching on by ADT laden CCTV camera, but it bothers me when it constantly gazes and stares at me. My Fitbit wrist watch gifted by my sister is a state of art, making me classy but I really feel bad when I read research published by Fitbit about the sleeping habit of its watch users, definitely, they might have pulled my data. You see, I didn’t know that, where is my privacy?
China is leading its way on AI, it has installed 20 million cameras (Lo, 2017), reading your each and every geometry and facial identification, it has a new system of “social credit” and I swear do not dare to bite against the government, your negative social credit will not let you even have good commutes. But the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you are cutting trees, but the drone technology is replacing the human afforestation process in Pakistan, the camera attached with the drone first captures the project landscape the disperse seeds and can plant up to 100000 trees a day (Hutt, 2018), innovation to combat GHG.
But sadly, these innovations are also bringing a kind of social fraction whose ramification could be detrimental. We are into the “review economy”, you review your uber driver, the hotel where you nested and the multiplex where you watched movie, and I am afraid a day, a general person like me, who always maintains the neutrality will be score on the basis of which I would get job, allowed to ride or even marry. Is not this more structured? I think the constant monitoring makes us artificial.
And often, the innovation is seen more polarized to developed countries, which are pulling all the resources back to them. The lag period of the innovation to travel from the innovator to markets far from the innovating country is huge, though those countries could be their market (I mean from rich innovating countries to 3rd world) is huge. I feel the divergence and delegation of innovation are not homogenous which should have been.
Lastly, as Moore's Law has stated, the cost of technological innovation half’s every 18 months and speeds its performance increases by doubles the same time, and the controlling mechanism often lags behind these innovations. Have you thought or were there any stern data protecting act before the data mining scandal from Facebook?
Yes, no doubt, technology has changed how we used to consume, how we use to commute and how I used to converse but it certainly has a paradox, often I am traded in-between the market without my knowledge, I feel a new kind of capitalism has been brought by the tech-innovation, Google earns on what the user feed, its capital is not, what it manufactures but it is what ordinary users like us feed. So, is Google playing a fair game by making my Gmail account free for me? Perhaps the quest to this statement shall always remain unanswered as all innovation shall always be driven by profit and there will always be pro and cons, and the innovator is good until they are egalitarian and utilitarian.
Bibliography
Cann, O. (2018, September 17). Machines Will Do More Tasks Than Humans by 2025 but Robot Revolution Will Still Create 58 Million Net New Jobs in Next Five Years. Retrieved from www.weforum.org: https://www.weforum.org/press/2018/09/machines-will-do-more-tasks-than-humans-by-2025-but-robot-revolution-will-still-create-58-million-net-new-jobs-in-next-five-years/
Hutt, R. (2018, July 02). Pakistan has planted over a billion trees. Retrieved from www.weforum.org: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/pakistan-s-billion-tree-tsunami-is-astonishing/
Lo, T. (2017, September 25). Big brother is watching you! China installs 'the world's most advanced video surveillance system' with over 20 million AI-equipped street cameras. Retrieved from www.dailymail.co.uk: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4918342/China-installs-20-million-AI-equipped-street-cameras.html
No comments:
Post a Comment