Future Tense

Future Tense Newsletter: Wearables, Webcams, and Writs

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Mapping the future of A.I.

Annecordon/thinkstock.com

Greetings, Future Tensers,

It’s hard to believe that we’re already in our fourth month of Futurography. We’ve covered geoengineering, algorithms, and cyberwar, and now we’ve moved on to A.I., looking into whether it’s really likely to kill us all. As always, we’ve started with a conversational introduction to the topic and a cheat sheet that lays out key players, further readings, and more. We’ll have other articles and materials coming in the days and weeks ahead, but for now we’d invite you to try out our quiz on cyberwar from last month and to check in with this write-up of reader responses to our survey on that course.

If you want to see why we think it’s important to understand these issues, read up on the problem of “Google dorking,” a search technique that may have given an Iranian hacker access to a dam in New York. Dorking, which involves searching for very specific information, has been possible for years, and in that regard it offers an important reminder that these problems aren’t new. Neither, for that matter, are governmental attempts to use the 1789 All Writs Acts to get information from technological devices: In fact, the government had done just that dozens of times, long before they tried to pry open the San Bernardino shooter’s phone. That’s all the more reason to celebrate WhatsApp’s implementation of end-to-end encryption, a system that makes it difficult for the company itself to access information sent by users.

Here are some of the other stories that we read while comparing the size of data leaks:

  • Wearables: Tech companies are trying to sell more gadgets to women, but too many of those products still rely on stereotypes that have little to do with the ways real women live and work.
  • Webcams: Though live-streamed video might seem like a poor substitute for truly exploring nature, it can actually amplify our encounters with wildlife—and complement conservation efforts in the process.
  • Copyright: Companies are trying to claim ownership of the interfaces we use to access their software and devices. Charles Duan argues that those efforts can only lead to confusion.
  • Social media: Miitomo, the first mobile app from Nintendo, augurs bizarre, troubling things about the ways we’re being trained to interact online.

Perfecting my avatar,

Jacob Brogan

for Future Tense