My Technological Relationship

 Technology is a big part of my life, as it is with almost everyone. I rarely go anywhere without my phone, and oftentimes I'll have AirPods in my ears playing some type of music if I'm not with anybody when I'm out somewhere. When I use my computer it's about at 60-40 split of entertainment to work, as when I'm not working on something I like to have something playing in the background, either a TV show or some movie. Technology hasn't always had such a big role in my life but it has increased as I grew up and as society aged. Today I don't think we are able to judge our relationship with technology to be healthy or not based on screen time alone, because technology has become needed for almost everything we do in our daily lives. I know that my phone, computer, and Whoop are constantly tracking and monitoring me, but I think with the state of our society, and our dependence on tech, it is a necessary evil to operate at the level that we do. I think our relationship with technology should be determined to be healthy or not based on how we allow technology to be in our lives and how we consume what we see on it everyday. 

My Technology Growing Up

When I was a kid, I used to play outside with friends and kids in my neighborhood, read quite a bit, and played with toys like any other kid my age. The technology I did have was very innocent, as it was not connected to some bigger network like so much is today, and it was all for entertainment. But technology was never a priority or something I always wanted to use when growing up, as I had other things that I enjoyed doing more. When I was 12 years old my parents got me an iPhone for the first time, and the main reason I got it was because I was spending more time doing things where I being left alone or going places more often without parents and needed a way to contact them. I had rules set by my parents for what I could and couldn't do on my phone, in addition to them being able to check it whenever they wanted. Once I did get a phone I still used it mainly for entertainment, playing games on it, watching YouTube, but still, it wasn't something I valued using over other activities that didn't require a screen. Social media entered my life when I was 14, I downloaded Instagram, and started to use my phone more, scrolling through Instagram, and keeping in touch with my friends. My parents and school always drilled into my head the idea that social media is a good way to connect with people, you have to be careful what you say/post, as it could come back to bite you. When I was going into my freshman year of high school, I got my first laptop, with my parents buying it so I wouldn't take up so much time using the family computer for homework. This is when I also started to consume media like movies and TV shows more regularly through streaming services, and I would occasionally have restrictions on what I could and couldn't watch. My parents did this in an effort to stop it from desensitizing me to certain topics that would've had a negative impact on my mental health growing up. I realize now that my parents were apart of a generation that had lived without and with modern technology, and they were apprehensive to just pushing a screen in front of me. They didn't think that constantly being stimulated by a screen was a good way for someone to grow up and mature. Which I think made me less dependent on technology as a kid, and even today I could live without it if I had to. 

I never had the desire to join Facebook, as I thought it was mainly for older people. But when I was playing rugby in high school, a private Facebook page was the main way my coach communicated to us outside of practice, so I had to register on Facebook and create a profile, out of necessity. I don't use Facebook outside that, but it speaks to a growing issue with technology and social media, that there is no escape from it. In our society there is an ever-growing need for technology to do more things in our lives, and you're bound to use if you want to keep up because so much of our lives is connected to technology.

My Use of Tech Today

In the past year and a half I joined Tik Tok and Twitter, and while I read and scroll through those apps daily, I rarely post on them, but I am conscious about what people are able to see on those apps. Both those profiles are public, but on Tik Tok one could only see who I follow, and on Twitter the same is true and they are also able to see everything I've "liked". I know to be mindful of what I do and post on social media, as in some cases not only can the site see it, but everyone else can, and what I say/post could negatively affect me later in life. When someone looks at my page for the first time they get a digital first impression of me. So, when I see something on Twitter I "like", but could be taken the wrong way, I think to myself, would I want someone to see that as the first thing about me, and that could be how they judge me, and if the answer is not a "yes, I'm okay with that" then I "unlike" and ignore it. The same goes for Instagram, I don't post much, but I don't want people to see what I've posted and take it in a negative manner and that be what they use to judge me. I am careful also on what I believe on social media, as I know that I have created different echo chambers on each one. My Instagram and Twitter are more focused on entertainment news and Formula 1, and Tik Tok is more focused on memes and entertaining videos. I have also unintentionally created different echo chambers for general news on Instagram and Twitter, with Twitter being more independent leaning news, and Instagram being a mixture of conservative and liberal news, varying based on which side I viewed more of each time I use it. I didn't know I was doing this, but since I noticed it I try to look at both before forming opinions on certain topics. 

Since graduating high school, I have used technology more than ever, as there is some type of a screen running for a majority of my day, either for school, work, or entertainment. Working as a mover when at home, I use the Maps app on my phone everyday to get to the job sites. I also use the Maps app to go anywhere I don't fully know how to get there. I know that I am essentially inviting my phone to track where I'm going and when every day, but I don't mind as it helps me get where I need to go. I also wear a fitness tracker, a Whoop, which I have been constantly wearing for about a year and a half. It continuously tracks my heart rate, calories burned, and sleep, logging it all in my account. I think that technology has reached so many aspects of our lives that it is almost impossible for us to live our lives disconnected and keep up with the world around us. I use the internet and technology to order food from the university's restaurants, sign up for the gym at home, order things from Amazon, make appointments, and watch movies and TV. 

The Impacts of Tech on Me

I think that overall social media has had both a positive and negative impact on me. I think that in theory,  social media is a very good idea. A way for people to stay connected when otherwise never know they exist or lose contact with someone is a great thing. But it has drawbacks, with the biggest problem being privacy. I think that what social media allows me to do is a good enough reason for me to sacrifice my privacy on the app. I know that for my generation we grew up with this technology and there is almost nothing we can do now to get back what we have lost and other apps can track so much more data so a little more can't be much worse. I've known that those sites track what I do to advertise products to me, and that does bother me, it is the society we live in, and we can try to fight it with some type of potential legislation, but right now we have to accept this is our reality.

I also believe a key to a healthy relationship with tech is how we consume it, or how we take the information it gives us. The saying that too much of a good thing is a bad thing rings tru for social media, as we see people take breaks from social media to "recenter" themselves mentally. I've only taken breaks from social media when I had no way of connecting to the sites, and after the first day it did feel good to not constantly wonder about what was happening on there. Technology and social media are an integral part of our society, but it's important to remember that it isn't everything in our society. More and more people are walking around with their head buried in their phones, and as we saw in the animated short, this can lead to an apathetic society only concerned with the digital world. 

With the grip that technology holds on our society, I think that anyone with a healthy relationship will have problems with their tech, but there isn't much one can do without getting left behind if they were to quit their tech. After looking back at how technology has been in my life, and how I've come to regard it, I think I do have a healthy relationship with it in terms of how I consume the content and how much access I give it. 

The Diffusion of Innovations - Game of Thrones

The Diffusion of Innovations theory is mainly applied to technology or ideas in most uses, but if we look at a TV show we can see it follows similar steps as other ideas and tech. In this case, we'll look at HBO's hit series, Game of Thrones. The show is based off of a novel series, A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin and by the series' end, it had become the second most awarded show in the Emmy's Awards history with 59 wins over 8 years. But it wasn't always the TV juggernaut that it became. 

HBO's Game of Thrones adaptation was pioneered by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and was announced in 2007. But took until November of 2008 for HBO to order a pilot, and even then the series didn't officially premier until 2011. The book series had been running since 1996, with a loyal fanbase and multiple media outlets placing the show as one of their most anticipated series of the year. The first episode premiered with 2.2 million viewers, which was a small amount but strong enough for HBO to order a second season off of the premier's viewership alone. For reference, the most watched piece of television in 2011 was the Super Bowl at 111 million viewers. The first season had a total average of 9.3 million viewers and grew with each season, at most, by 5 million new viewers until Season 7 in 2017. Season 7 averaged 32.8 million viewers in total jumping from 25.7 million for season 6, and Season 8 averaged 46 million viewers in total. With the final episode becoming HBO's most watched single telecast with 13.6 million viewers on the HBO channel alone, raising it to 19.3 million across all HBO platforms. This pushed Game of Thrones to the top of HBO's most watched list of original programming where it still remains today. The show has gone past the screen bounds of people's television in the later seasons as the filming sites in Northern Ireland and Croatia have become tourist destinations for fans, people would name their children after characters from the show. 

Even though the show is the most watched series in HBO's history, it hasn't reached everyone yet, and most likely never will. The show might've broken records in its last season, but there are still people that refused to watch it then and now. To not watch the show became as much of an identity as watching it in anticipation for the 8th season. Arguments have been made about the extreme violence of the series, the traumatic events of a character's death that happen onscreen, the explicit language, and the gratuitous amount of nudity and sex onscreen. So Game of Thrones might be one of the biggest television series and events of recent years, not everyone will choose to take part in the action. 

The Struggle to Support Anti-War

  Anti-war stances are not something new to the American consciousness, even though much of our international history seems to be involved in some type of military conflict. Americans were very opposed to joining WWI even after the Zimmerman telegram. The majority of Americans were opposed again to WWII, until Pearl Harbor was bombed. We saw massive protests in the 1960s against the Vietnam War protesting the military tactics and the necessity for fighting in Vietnam. But these views have always been looked at in a negative light, and that citizens should always support the US going to war.

Today, we don't see many anti-war voices in the mainstream media, you would have to go to either social media pages, or what seems to be fringe news sites to find those views. The antiwar stance is not oftentimes given a positive view because it goes against what the mainstream media sources believe. These sources usually get their information directly from the government, on from who they think to be trusted sources, and those can be pushing their own agenda. These sites like antiwar.com and theamericanconservative.com are considered to be not as trusted at first glance because they oftentimes disagree with the government's stance on wars. Sites like these are harder to find than ones with opposing views because these sites are often speaking out against the government, and no matter what country you are in speaking out against the government is never regarded fondly. These sites are also thought to be on the same level of conspiracy sites because of their opposition to what the government will release, which tarnishes their reputation by association, even though what they write is true. 

How Privacy is Changing

As a society we are at a fork in the road when it comes to privacy. One path is to give more privacy to the people, and to keep their data away from tech companies and the government. The other is taking away the people's privacy to allow the government and tech companies to watch and store every aspect of our lives online. The question society has to answer is which path is the correct one and which leads to disaster? 

Today we live a good amount of our lives online in some type of way, and these online lives can be much more impactful than what someone could do in their real life. As seen in Juan Enriquez's TED Talk about online tattoos, our digital lives will outlive our bodies by a wide margin, and it's not close, and these digital lives are a type of tattoo on our virtual self. By searching through people's Twitter profiles, what they post on Instagram, the jobs they've posted about on LinkedIn, or credit scores one can know almost everything about a person without ever speaking a word to them. For Gen Z, we have been told all our lives to be careful what we post online because it can never be completely deleted. This has come true in recent times in the form of cancel culture. We've seen a celebrity’s reputation be completely destroyed all because of one tweet they posted years prior. Everything we do or say online is going to stay there in some form, and it's only going to get worse as more technology that logs aspects about our lives is introduced into society. Another breach of privacy rights people encounter is when someone posts explicit photos, words, or videos of another with malicious intent, in other words, revenge porn. Darieth Chisolm was a victim of revenge porn by an ex-boyfriend, and it ruined her personal life and mental health. She found there is only 1 pending bill to protect victims in the US, at the time of the video. While she was able to get the photos taken down, it was very expensive and humiliating for her to deal with the situation. But her result isn't the rule, as not everyone can pay the money it costs to take down the explicit material of them removed.

Our privacy isn't only being betrayed by ourselves, but also by our own governments as Catherine Crump discusses in her TED Talk about police surveillance and its complexity. She reveals to the audience how police use automatic license plate readers to log not only suspect vehicles, but every single person's vehicle and their whereabouts. In addition to that they also employ the use of cell tower dumps to see who is using a cell tower and where they are using it from. With the technology we have today for recognition software, the widespread use by police departments is an invasion of our private lives, especially when used on innocent civilians that haven't done anything wrong. When so much about our daily lives is being stored by the government it begins to create a mass surveillance state where nothing we do is private and kept away from prying eyes and ears. 

Even though there is so many different things chipping away at our privacy, it isn't completely destroyed yet. Christopher Soghoian lists multiple ways your privacy is still being valued and protected. Silicon Valley companies, like Apple, are now putting more encryptions and protections on their phones than ever before, and turning them on as a default setting. To the point that even Apple cannot read text messages one sends to another Apple product. Messaging apps like WhatsApp also have this high level encryption on messages all over the world, protecting people from totalitarian governments everywhere. While this can stop the authorities from catching potential criminals by not seeing what they write and talk on the phone about, the general protection of the masses should outweigh that. 

What I learned About the Echo Chamber

 When you use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or any social media site you have an account and that account logs what you spend time looking at, like, ignore, and click on. After a while, you begin to only see things on those sites that fit within what you have interacted with positively. This creates an echo chamber, and it can be dangerous if left unchecked in media. An echo chamber is a situation where one's beliefs and ideals are constantly being reinforced inside a closed system without any disagreeing opinions. The more technical term is confirmation bias, and with the rise in social media and political polarization the echo chambers have progressively gotten more extreme. 

Social media is one of the biggest culprits in creating echo chambers because of how much time is spent on these sites everyday. By tailoring our news feeds to feature things that are similar to ones we have "liked" and "shared" it keeps people scrolling longer, being fed the same beliefs for extended periods of time. It isn't entirely social media's fault either, as we do this because we like it, it doesn't force us to think about why we believe something or challenges what we believe in. In the presentation in class, the presenter stated that 68% of Americans rely on social media for their main source of news, which is a prime location for echo chambers, as I have already stated. The presenter also stated echo chambers pose a greater threat to younger audiences on social media as they are not educated enough to recognize what is happening and how it can affect them. In addition to younger people, lower-income people are also at risk because it can be difficult to access information outside of their echo chambers. These are not limited to social media, as you could find echo chambers in any type of media. For example one could only watch Fox News, The Daily Wire, or other republican news sources and that person would only see issues through the lens of a republican, and vice versa for democratic sources. 

There is no situation where an echo chamber's benefits outweigh its drawbacks. Political polarization is another drawback that seems to only have amplified in recent years. As social media sites recognize someone is starting to "like" political posts one way or another, it will suggest more and more posts with that same message. This can push people further to the extreme side of whichever political party, and then there is no hope for healthy conversations about politics. While it allows people online to find others that share their beliefs and views of the world, that includes people that pose a danger to society finding others like them and potentially causing harm to a lot of people. For example the far-right social network site, Gab, which has no moderation on what can be said on the site, and has been used by domestic terrorists that have carried out shootings across America in recent years. In addition to radicalization, it creates a closed mindedness in the people in their own echo chambers, and goes against the notion of a marketplace of ideas. 

There is still hope for people to escape these echo chambers. The best way to combat this is to widen the scope of news one consumes. If someone were to read different opinions on a topic it can help them form a more well-rounded opinion of their own. Hearing ideas from outside one's echo chamber can be uncomfortable but is necessary to build a complete opinion on a topic. Another way is to take everything with some skepticism until one can truly verify what they are reading is an objective fact, and not twisted in any way. People fall into these echo chambers because they allow them to feel good about their ideas as they are always reinforced, but unless one seeks out other viewpoints, they can almost never get the full picture. 

Something I Learned About Facebook

 At this point in our society it's safe to assume the saying "everyone and their mother is using..." is true in regard to Facebook, with the platform having a little over a reported 2.9 billion users in total last year. It has grown into something that no one could've imagined it becoming. Going from a students-only website to now owning different types of messaging platforms (WhatsApp), photo-sharing platforms (Instagram), and its own Facebook Marketplace to buy and sell items from other users. Facebook has not been free of controversy, dating back to its origins at Harvard, and even today on a much greater scale. But there is no denying the impact Facebook has had on our culture and the ways we interact with technology like it.

"The" History of Facebook

In October of 2003, Mark Zuckerberg launched a website to judge which one of 2 photos of girls at Harvard was hotter, called Facesmash.com. It was shut down by the school quickly, but not before it went viral throughout Harvard. Zuckerberg's site put him on the radar of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, who wanted Mark to create a social networking site for college students. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launches thefacebook.com, for Harvard students only, and is then sued by the Winklevoss twins and Narendra, claiming he stole their idea. They eventually settled and walked away with $65 million. Zuckerberg's site, thefacebook.com, reached 1 million users by September 2004, by December 2005, it had 5 million users, and had dropped the "the" out of the name. In 2006, Facebook launched the news feed addition to its home page. 

A new type of ads were introduced to the website in 2007, Facebook Ads and Social Ads. Facebook Ads allowed a business to create its own page to market their items, share photos, and interact with people on Facebook. Social Ads which would combine an advertiser's message with something a user's friend had recently done, like purchasing something and posting about it on their own page. These ads were placed onto a user's newsfeed and a precursor to the infamous targeted ads all over Facebook today. In August 2011, Facebook launched Messenger, then in 2012 Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion and then took Facebook public soon after, and finished out that year reaching 1 billion users on Facebook. The site made to the business big leagues in 2013, being named to the Fortune 500 list, emphasizing just how big a social media company could become. After its involvement in scandals in recent years, Facebook has faced huge amount of distrust from users, as the site tries to do everything they can to regain that trust. In October 2021, Facebook announced it will rebrand itself to "Meta" as a step to building its own metaverse. A virtual reality Facebook is creating to someday have all work, social media, and some aspects of life being done in this virtual world.

Facebook's Troubles

Something Facebook has yet to completely grasp is the idea "with great power, comes great responsibility" as Facebook has been involved in controversy since its inception. However, once it became a worldwide sensation the controversies widened in scale and impact on both users and the company. One of the most infamous scandals involving the site was surrounding the 2016 presidential election. During the run-up to that election, fake news spread like a wildfire on Facebook, with no effective way to control it. Large amounts of these fake news articles would push people to support Donald Trump, for example calling Hillary Clinton a killer or that Trump was supported by the Pope. Facebook has continued to struggle with filtering out fake news from their site, as it is occasionally difficult to determine what is fake and the sheer amount of fake news on the site increases the difficulty of removing it all efficiently. Facebook has also run into countless data breaches, leaking personal information of up to millions of users at a time. All of these recent scandals and controversies prompted Congress to summon Zuckerberg and Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg to testify after it was revealed that about 87 million user's data had been taken from Facebook by a political consultant firm and then used to help Donald Trump's campaign. Facebook was fined $5 billion by the US government, and was forced to introduce new ways to stop privacy leaks in the future. 

Facebook's Impact

While Facebook has had its many troubles, it has revolutionized the way that people stay in touch with others they might not have been able to years ago. It has played a major role in bring everyone closer together, allowing someone on one side of the country to find a business on the other side that can supply them with something they need. It allows older people to remain in contact with people from their high school/college they would've only seen at a reunion every couple of years. But this connectivity has its downsides. It allows the people in society who wish to do terrible actions to find others like themselves and potentially cause wider harm. We have seen cyberbullying rates as well as teen suicide rates rise since social media began to be used my more people. Facebook may have allowed us to become a more connected society but it's pitfalls can become extreme issues if not dealt with quickly and effectively. 

EOTO 2: The Five Eyes

 It's common knowledge that each country has its own intelligence agencies that monitor, or "spy", on areas around the world, and are extremely secretive about what they do. But it hasn't always been known that some of these agencies work together and share their information and intelligence. Until 2010, when the world learned about the true extent of the UKUSA agreement and 5 Eyes alliance. 

History of the 5 Eyes

In WWII, FDR and Winston Churchill wrote a joint declaration called The Atlantic Charter, which spelled out their goals for international relations in 1941. It had 8 main points, neither nation would increase its power, not territory expansions, to allow people's rights to choose their own government where that was taken from them, equal access to trade and materials, promote worldwide peace, improve standards of living, allow free seas, and potential aggressors will be disarmed until a sense of general security is achieved. This charter paved the way for the UKUSA Agreement, which was formally signed on March 5, 1946. The UKUSA agreement was in practice between the 2 countries since 1943, when the USA and the UK agreed to share intelligence in order to help the US troops in Europe. When it was signed, it was to allow for post-war intelligence cooperation between the 2 countries, but was heavily classified for decades. Adding Canada in 1948 then Australia and New Zealand in 1956, it was known as "5 Eyes" to those involved as a shorthand, which eventually stuck. Each country involved has about 3-5 agencies involved in human intelligence, military intelligence, and other information.    

Five Eyes has been a top-secret alliance between the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand gathering information to aid each other in every conflict since its inception. During the Cold War, Five Eyes was used to monitor Soviet communications and military operations in and around Soviet or communist regions. For the British, 5 Eyes aided in tracking Soviet submarines, especially ones carrying ballistic missiles in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. The US utilized the international cooperation by using British outposts in regions that were formally in Britain's intelligence sphere, especially the Middle East. During the Cold War, the ECHELON program was created as a way of surveilling Soviet military and diplomatic communications, but has grown into a worldwide surveillance network today. The ECHELON program relied on noting traffic that was deemed as suspicious and gathered the information, and originally used satellites for its data-gathering. This program is one of the most extensive surveillance networks in the world, as it is still in operation today, having adapted to the internet and today's forms of online communication. There are multiple collection sites around the world, tasked with gathering information from different regions, looking for key words and phrases to label people and organizations as suspicious or needing to be monitored. Since the Cold War, 5 Eyes has been used in fighting the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, overthrowing governments in the Middle East and Central/Southern America, the war on terror, and more that have not been declassified yet. 

5 Eyes In Recent Times

In 2010, the entire UKUSA Agreement was declassified to the public, exposing the 5 Eyes to the general public. Prompting discussion on the legality of 5 Eyes' operations, but that discussion grew in 2013 with Edward Snowden. Snowden, a former NSA consultant and whistleblower, leaked to the public the extent of government monitoring, both foreign and domestic. When discussing 5 Eyes, Snowden describes it as a “supra-national intelligence organization that does not answer to the known laws of its own countries”. He exposed that the countries involved would monitor its own citizens and each other's, to bypass any domestic restrictions on government surveillance of its own citizens. This angered many people in these countries as they had previously believed that the US government was only spying on foreign citizens, not their own. In recent years, 5 Eyes is still being used to monitor citizens and organizations of different countries, but also tech companies and providers such as, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Visa, Facebook, Apple, and YouTube. In monitoring people and organizations, 5 Eyes has now adapted to surveilling different internet communications such as emails, texts, fax, and even phone calls. Agencies and governments still maintain that the surveillance has been necessary for national security. 

5 Eyes is still in operation today, and bigger than ever as well. Now with alliances known as the 9 Eyes and 14 Eyes have been created, but it is not known exactly when these were formed. The 9 Eyes is comprised of the 5 Eyes, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Norway. The 14 Eyes is made up of the 9 Eyes, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. There are also coalitions between the 5 Eyes and certain countries to monitor different regions of the world. Like the Five Eyes plus 3 against China and Russia, with France, Germany, and Japan to watch suspicious military advancements by China and Russia since 2018. There is also the Five Eyes plus 3 against North Korea, with France, Japan, and South Korea to monitor North Korean military movements and communications. In 2020, India began to work with the 5 Eyes in an effort to get tech companies to allow a "backdoor" access point on encrypted devices governments cannot already get into. 

Each country in the 5 Eyes has certain regions of the world they are responsible for monitoring, but are not limited to only those ares. For example, the US is tasked with surveilling the Middle east, China, Russia, Africa, and the Caribbean. It is also believed that today the 5 Eyes has become more focused on monitoring potential and ongoing human rights abuses around the world, such as the Uyghur's treatment in Xinjiang region of China. 

Response

Since being exposed by Snowden, the 5 Eyes and its governments have faced ongoing public backlash over privacy rights of its citizens as they believe it to be a massive violation of basic human rights. So far there is little legislation restricting governments access to information, and it is difficult to accurately track which country is monitoring which. In 2016 however, the Investigatory Powers Act was written in the UK, which would expand the current legal limitations of their intelligence community's surveillance over electronic mediums. Allowing for the intelligence agencies to have more control over what they can monitor, and was faced with heavy public backlash including petitions for it to be repealed. It was amended in 2018 after a UK high court deemed it was in violation of an E.U. law. While the 5 Eyes has done good in preventing possibly disastrous conflicts, and helped reach peace in others, it cannot be ignored the gross violation of privacy rights and basic human rights these governments have committed on their own citizens. 

EOTO: The Telegraph

When you're driving down the road you probably don't even notice the wires running above and beside the roads because they've been there your entire life. But there was a time when those wires were a novelty to the average traveller. These wires weren't just for powering homes and buildings, but for the increasing network of telegraphs. Before radio, and even telephones, the telegraph laid the groundwork for the connectivity of the United States. 

History

While Samuel Morse might be most known for his invention of the Morse Code, the electric telegraph is responsible for the widespread use of it. Invented and patented in 1837, the electrical telegraph revolutionized long distance communication. An operator would tap a key, using Morse Code, to break and make a connection between the telegraph's battery and receiver to send a message as electrical pulses along wires to another telegraph where the electrical pulses would control a stylus to write out the message in Morse Code. The first long distance use of the telegraph was from Washington D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland in 1843, with the message stating "What hath God wrought!"

As the amount of telegraph lines increased, so did the number of telegraph companies. Telegraph companies were who people would go to to send and receive telegraphs as they were the only ones with the machinery needed and direct access to the lines. The most dominant company was the Western Union Telegraph Company, which is still running today, but as a financial services company. Western Union was created when a number of telegraph companies were consolidated into one corporation in 1856. The first transcontinental telegraph line was completed in 1861, going from San Fransisco, California to the Midwest and connecting to the East Coast. It was later moved in 1869 to run alongside the Union Pacific Railroad to allow for maintenance to be completed easier and quicker when needed. 

The major uses of the telegraph came from journalists and military officials. Journalism accounted for a large amount of use of telegraphs as news organizations could now receive news from their correspondents in the same day. This dramatically increased the use and importance of correspondents in journalism. The Associated Press (A.P.) was originally formed by 5 separate news outlets in New York in 1846 as a way to share the information from telegrams and pay a telegraph company once and split the costs. It had similar effects in the military as well in regards to the messages increased speed of travel. Allowing generals on both sides to talk to their colleagues while on completely different fronts of wars. It was heavily used by President Lincoln in the Civil War, to the point he would sleep on a cot in the telegraph office during key battles. Lincoln used the telegraph to receive war updates or tell his generals to strike if he wasn't happy with the progress. 

In 1871, the duplex transmission was introduced by J.B. Stearns, allowing for 2 messages to be sent or received on a single wire, and later in 1874, Edison invented the Quadruplex transmission system allowing for a single wire to send or receive 4 different signals. Allowing for a wider bandwidth on the telegraph lines all over the country. When the telephone was invented, by Alexander Graham Bell, it was expected to kill the telegraph, but in reality they coexisted for many years, as new technology for the telephone could be implemented on the telegraph. Such as simultaneous communication for telegraphs and telephones on the same wire, and the vacuum tube. The vacuum tube allowed for amplification of weaker signals on wires that travel longer distances. 

The end of the telegraph era came after World War II, because the older wires became too expensive to repair and were replaced by coaxial cables and microwave links. These new wires that had even more bandwidth for different signals, with their capabilities only being limited by the extents of the equipment sending the signals. 

The Impact of the Telegraph

The telegraph was the first ever form of electrical communication, laying the groundwork for every other type of electrical communication since then. In its time the telegraph decreased travel time of messages so drastically it ended the Pony Express industry, in addition the messages were a lot more secure traveling on the wires than on a horse. It also helped facilitate railway construction, because management at building sites could communicate with their bosses easier and vice versa, so they can update the workers if needed. It also created a lot of jobs across the country through the telegraph companies popping up in new towns, and giving reason to populate those towns. The travel time decrease also allowed for breaking news on one side of the country to reach the other side almost daily. The role of correspondents skyrocketed because of this as they could now be spread out even further across the country and keep their publishers up to date. In addition, it allowed for generals to communicate plans, troop advancements, and reports to each other in a much faster and secure way. 

While the telegraph had many advantages, there were also disadvantages from its use. The communication quality was very poor, especially compared to later communication techniques, as Morse Code is tedious to translate and not everyone was able to do it. There is the view that the telegraph forced the north and south regions of the country to del with the views each side on issues in society, the future of the country, and how that future should look, helping to push America towards civil war. 

AI and the Implications

Artificial intelligence is still in its infancy of its uses and potential, but it already has caused waves of concern in the public mind in recent years. Artificial intelligence is beginning to enter to more and more aspects of people's lives, through Amazon's Alexa, Siri, automated appliances, and the emergence of self-driving cars. As we see in the documentary, In the Age of AI, robots and artificial intelligence have become more of a staple in warehouse and manufacturing jobs across the country. But we are not alone in the rise of artificial intelligence as China is becoming more of an electronic superpower.

A major cause for the increase of automation is productivity speed and efficiency, leaving few job areas in the safe zone. Any job type that can find a way to maximize efficiency is vulnerable to automation, including transportation, finance, human resources, fast food, and manufacturing. Already, we are seeing an increase in robotics being used manufacturing jobs in America, taking away jobs from people in large numbers at a time, even though management claims this opens up more jobs in other areas, but the workers being laid off aren't finding other opportunities within those companies. Automation is being regarded as a "silent killer" as the job loss from it has been linked to disease, depression, and suicide up to 20 years after job loss, and it can also affect their children, as they are more likely to fall behind academically. Additionally, the jobs that are being taken over by automation often times more likely to be jobs completely by mainly women. 

This type of workforce revolution is now being followed by a type of surveillance capitalism in which artificial intelligence claims private human experiences to better predict human behavior for free. Wherever you go online, you leave digital footprints for the A.I. and tech companies to use and store. Google, in its early years, was the first to implement a system for tailoring ads for individuals based on their searches and web history, and they were able to make their profits skyrocket, and keep it hidden from the public, until they decided to go public. Tech companies like Google do not always care for the individual outside of gathering their data, so those that do collect data on people will not always use it with the best intentions. In recent years there has been legislation to protect the individual, including the Right to know and the Right to say no. The former allowing an individual to ask a company for the data on that person from the last year, and receive it, and the latter allowing a person to stop a website or company from collecting data on them.

On the other side of the globe, China has been building a surveillance state for years along with artificial intelligence improvements. In China we have found they use A.I. as a way to survey for any signs of unrest, using more than 6 million cameras in the year this documentary was released, 2019. One of these programs is the Sharp Eyes program, which has cameras on every street corner to recognize faces and actions. It also gives out tickets through its use of facial recognition and license plate recognition. Another part of this surveillance initiative is to find the citizens they believe to be a risk of committing treason or terrorism and to give them a "political re-education".  In China there is a region that is home to a number of Turkic Muslims, who have been the target of intense monitoring and unlawful imprisonment as a result of A.I. Their greatest ambition for surveillance is the Belt and Road initiative. An effort to extend Chinese control all over the world through financial support, for example funding a stadium, to different countries to increase their levels and potency of surveillance.