When everything is smart but you!
Remember the times when the smartest thing that you had was your brain?
Well that’s not the case in 2020 anymore.
From the inception of the tiny little thing called the ‘transistor’, data processing had taken a giant leap. Computers, the size of rooms have now shrunk to fit around our wrists. After the crazy era of feature phones (them weird relics made by Nokia), the modern day mobile devices are just mini super computers.
What’s next you ask?
After computers and smartphones came smart watches. Devices capable of monitoring heart rate and what not! The latest apple watch detects a fall and sends an SOS. Pretty smart right? Human curiosity never fails to amaze us and now we’ve even gone further. Google introduced its Google glass years ago, — a computer on your eyes now! Samsung recently released a refrigerator which apparently is ‘smart’. So, the next time you steal snacks from the kitchen, mom would know.
But the dilemma here, is evident: Is making every appliance smart, the right way to go? The concept of a smart home where everything is connected, has been discussed for long. If you’ve seen the series Mr. Robot, you could see how easily something like this can be hacked. Tesla recently conducted hack challenge where the guys who won took the Tesla home.
The information age has brought in new problems to our plate. The involvement of the physical brain of the end user today, is almost non-existent. This might not lead to an AI take over like in the Sci-fi movies, but it will eventually create a generation of dependent individuals who can’t do a simple math problem, without a calculator (and that includes me 👀 ).
More than making us lazy, there is a persistent threat to the most valuable thing in the world right now: Data. The smarter our collection of devices get, the more data they gather from you. Take our smart refrigerator for instance. Imagine the scenario where it detects one kind of vegetable/fruit/food item running low. Now pair it with the annoyingly accurate Google Ad Sense. You’d be soon seeing ads of Potato and cheese on Instagram. You might think you’re the ones being paranoid. What could they possibly do with your data? Trust me, they can do a lot. I might not be the only one getting spam calls from various institutions regarding courses to pursue after B.Tech or with them giving me elaborate options to study abroad. Targeted ads are real and with every device — no, every random accessory getting promoted to smart, it would have an adverse effect on the way we pursue the world.
With the present social distancing norms in place, and with decreasing human attraction, which was already in decline before Covid-19, this could just lead to a whole new generation of dumb and depressed people, soon helpless slaves of everything ‘smart’.
