9 Innovations Creeping Us Out in 2019
The technology that deserves our vigilance before “creepy” creeps into “dangerous”
By Ruth Reader
As reality in tech-heavy economies blends further into an unending choose-your-own adventure episode of Black Mirror, the biggest, creepiest innovation may be the big data economy built on the back of the black mirror in your hand. It’s not just Google and Facebook and Amazon and the rest of Silicon Valley sucking up our digital exhaust: A vast array of companies are increasingly capturing information about your every move for profit, and in ways that can adversely and quietly impact you.
Even Sheryl Connelly, Ford’s generally optimistic futurist, is worried about what’s to come. Between surging economic inequality, a yawning digital divide, and persistent privacy violations, she says, “it’s a very 1984 moment, and you have to wonder when the other shoe will drop.”
In many countries, there is little legal framework surrounding the collection and potential abuse of personal data. Last year, just a few months after Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal exploded, Europe began to grapple with new rules surrounding data collection through its new General Data Privacy Regulation, or GDPR. Shortly after that, California passed the nation’s most far-reaching…
