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THE TECHNOLOGY DILEMMA

Anonymous

April 26, 2023

THE TECHNOLOGY DILEMMA

This image was generated with Dream Studio AI.

Who decides if we are hired? Who decides if we get a loan? The answer is simple, an algorithm. Many people still ignore this aspect, but the reality is that more and more algorithms make decisions for our lifetime. Of course, technology is fundamental in our lives, and I could not imagine a life without it; but its development without control could bring us many social and ethical issues.
Firstly, an algorithm works from all the data that all the users from the media provide, and then, taking all this data, the system learns to pull out its conclusions. This process is known as machine learning.
Imagine an algorithm that it's learning through social media, for instance, Twitter. The algorithm takes many tweets from different users and analyzes them, but what happens if one tweet is homophobic? The algorithm won't know that, and it will think that insulting gay people is right. This is just an example, but there are plenty of cases like this and even more complex ones.
In 2040 I imagine a future where the development of technology is under control and whose progress is taking part at the same time that human evolution. A future where people of all knowledge branches (philosophers, engineers...) are working together to solve all the social dilemmas and to improve the citizen's quality of life through the right improvement of technology.

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transports collectifs
In 2040, if I'm still alive, I'll be almost 90. But, given my average health, I'll surely be dead, as will many other animals and humans, given current pollution and climate degradation, if it weren't for the murderous and warlike madness of the so-called humans who outbid us. But if we give up our egoism, in particular by abandoning individual means of transport such as the fossil-powered car or the all-too-easy airplane, we could develop numerous modes of public transport - trains, streetcars, buses and coaches - and recreate a dense enough network to encourage useful or leisure travel, as well as favoring transport by boat instead of airplane. All this can be developed by collectivizing the means to produce them. One of my grandmothers, almost 111, could still jokingly say: "I've lived through 3 centuries, the 19th, 20th and 21st", because she lived a healthy life, almost self-sufficiently with her husband, wounded in the 1914-18 war. On the other hand, at the age of 10, between the years 1900 and 1910, she remembered being amazed by her first automobile trip when a wealthy neighbor drove her 2 kilometers from school to home. At the same time, the students took turns carrying a log of wood in their bags to heat the school in winter. She would surely be sorry to know that today this "Wonder" has contributed to the destruction of the Earth. Or to learn, as I did, belatedly that the American industrialists of the early days of the automobile bought up public means of transport, only to abandon and destroy them immediately to develop their own financially juicy industries, and that the Europeans followed suit. My father, born in 1920, could still take 2 or 3 local trains or streetcars as a child, with connections, to travel 40 kilometers from Dunois to Perche-Gouët". We can recreate this spirit, this frugality and good living, even this joy of public transport.
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