When we think of data, we do not associate it with the dangers associated with information but only with facts, statistics or items of information. We have no problems with sharing information on social networking sites or on other shared platforms and gaining information from others, but we are consciously making those exchanges and hence we do not find the experience intimidating. Would we be comfortable if the apps we use to play, entertain, educate or shop, most of which use Artificial Intelligence Technologies, start studying, judging, categorizing and labelling us because of the choices, searches, topics, skills and techniques used to retrieve information, etc? I am assuming that, like me, the majority would not respond in the affirmative to this question. If you had substantial evidence that each time you accessed an app you are on the verge of losing your identity due to the speed with which the AI has memorized facts about you and is becoming your extended self, it would be nightmarish.
It would be extremely nerve-wracking if an external agency controlling the different search engines that you use daily prevented you from accessing the information you need by blacklisting those. Through exclusion, the unseen antagonists control your mind and promote the sites, the contacts, the information they want you to access. Unconscious, unaware of the original intentions of the manipulators, we become brainwashed, or we realize we are in the clutches of hackers or AI technologies. For some unexplained reason, I am unable to dispense the feeling that internet providers besides other global organizations play a significant role in blacklisting. One look at my social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter would confirm that I am being controlled and blacklisted from the rest of the world. Not a single ‘like’ form even an accidental visitor in all these years even though my profile is public and not restricted to only friends and family. On one occasion, I found locks on all my individual entries to my horror, which I had to unlock one by one. This clearly shows that the faceless opponents are trying constantly to isolate me from the rest of the world and erase my identity from the surface of the earth. Isn’t it a classic case of identity theft?
If you think that individuals and the vulnerable are whom they target for blacklisting, you are mistaken. American population was blacklisted by Google and YouTube, as per the news report given below, during elections, from accessing the right information about a few topics, from conservative parties and their respective channels etc. Next we will be hearing about Australian election blacklisting.
There is much excitement about the brain-to-brain interface because of the benefits in various fields and how people living in different parts of the world can be connected via microchips and the internet. It is also possible for two connected people to share their memories, emotions and experiences. We cannot deny that we have been warned about the dangers of hacking into human brain and that there has been emphasis on responsible behaviour. What if individuals fail to behave responsibly and use the memories of the other to harass the individual or the individual’s family and friends using the memories to their advantage and claiming other’s inventions, discoveries, creations etc. to be his or her own. Internet also reveals that there are ways to prevent internet blacklisting but how successful are the recommended strategies. Even the guru of Artificial Intelligence, Elon Musk, has warned the world not to focus only on the positives but more on the dangers of Artificial Intelligence.
A Writer's Exposé 