At the beginning of 2018, there was a dispute inside Google about whether they should cooperate with the military to build a security tool. The executives are happy with this. On the one hand, Google needs to restore its reputation in society, especially in the US. In recent years, Google has been criticized a lot that as a US company that expands business around the world, Google becomes less and less patriotic. Cooperating with the military will help change the bad impression. Also, the military is generally generous about the costs and expenses: if the quality is good, they are willing to pay extra. Therefore, the executives were very fond of this business. However, scientists and employees in Google were against this deal. They think technology should be regarded as technology only. Advanced technology should be only used by people to improve their lives, rather than by making profits by certain people, or even in a potential war. Such a dispute still exists not only in Google but also in larger information companies.
However, at this age, it is really difficult to have a great accomplishment without the help of huge funding, which sometimes comes from the military. Norbert Wiener is a typical example. In Doug Hill's article, "The Eccentric Genius Whose Time May Have Finally Come (Again)", Wiener's cybernetics theory made him one of the most influential scientists in the world at that period. However, the military was attracted by his theory and invited him to the Manhattan Project. However, Wiener refused since he thought once his theory was applied in this way, it would eventually damage human rights. Unfortunately, this negative attitude finally led to his setback and did not get recovered.
It is no doubt that technologies nowadays are becoming more and more sensitive. Ordinary people who do not know how to protect their personal data will be vulnerable to modern technology. We can easily know the activity of someone on the Internet by only employ several algorithms. Therefore, we must keep our personal integrity when developing new technologies. As Hill wrote in his article, "All of these insist that not only is sorcery a sin leading to Hell but it is a personal peril in this life. It is a two-edged sword, and sooner or later it will cut you deep."
Hi Yunhao! Interesting topic you have chosen. In my opinion, I do not believe any tech companies should have the obligation to help the military. Just take a look at the recent FBI/Apple controversy. The FBI wanted Apple to essentially create a backdoor to their software in order to get access to information from a criminal's iPhone. Of course the big issue is privacy as once the backdoor is created, there is no going back. Who knows what else it could be used for? I am assuming that is the general idea you were going for as your transition from Google and the military to sensitive technology was rather abrupt and unexplained. You could give more reasons on why Wiener refused to aid the military and try to connect them to modern examples. Your font size is also rather small and difficult to read. Besides that, nice job!
ReplyDeleteIt was great to be able to learn a bit more about something I was not aware of!
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit uncertain as to what exactly the main focus of this blog post is. What point are you trying to get across? How does this tie into main ideas from your reading of choice? What further insights can this example draw upon in regards to the reading? I think answering these questions along with making your purpose more clear-cut will help make this blog post even stronger.
Also, you should increase the font size! It's a bit difficult to make out the text with it being so small.