#the dark side of technology

[reallytoosublime]

The dark side of technology encompasses a multifaceted and intricate web of concerns, consequences, and unintended outcomes that arise from the relentless march of technological progress. While technology has undeniably revolutionized the way we live, work, and communicate, it has also cast a shadow over various aspects of our lives and society at large.

The allure of technology, particularly smartphones and social media, has led to concerns about addiction and its impact on mental well-being. Endless scrolling, notifications, and instant gratification mechanisms can create dopamine-driven feedback loops that lead to compulsive behavior and feelings of emptiness. The rise in anxiety, depression, and social isolation is attributed, in part, to the addictive nature of certain technologies.

Automation and artificial intelligence promise increased efficiency and productivity, but they also pose a threat to jobs. The displacement of human workers by machines can lead to unemployment, income inequality, and social unrest. The need for upskilling and reskilling becomes paramount as certain industries evolve or disappear.

In navigating the dark side of technology, it is imperative to foster awareness, dialogue, and responsible innovation. Striking a balance between the benefits and risks of technology requires a collaborative effort involving policymakers, tech companies, ethicists, and the broader society. Only through thoughtful consideration and proactive measures can we mitigate the negative impacts of technology while harnessing its potential for the greater good.

The Dark Side of Technology: Unveiling The Sustainability Question

[youtubemarketing1234]

The dark side of technology encompasses a multifaceted and intricate web of concerns, consequences, and unintended outcomes that arise from the relentless march of technological progress. While technology has undeniably revolutionized the way we live, work, and communicate, it has also cast a shadow over various aspects of our lives and society at large.

The allure of technology, particularly smartphones and social media, has led to concerns about addiction and its impact on mental well-being. Endless scrolling, notifications, and instant gratification mechanisms can create dopamine-driven feedback loops that lead to compulsive behavior and feelings of emptiness. The rise in anxiety, depression, and social isolation is attributed, in part, to the addictive nature of certain technologies.

Automation and artificial intelligence promise increased efficiency and productivity, but they also pose a threat to jobs. The displacement of human workers by machines can lead to unemployment, income inequality, and social unrest. The need for upskilling and reskilling becomes paramount as certain industries evolve or disappear.

The production, use, and disposal of technological devices have significant environmental consequences. E-waste, toxic materials, and energy consumption associated with manufacturing and powering devices contribute to pollution and resource depletion. As the world grapples with the climate crisis, the sustainability of technology comes under scrutiny.

In navigating the dark side of technology, it is imperative to foster awareness, dialogue, and responsible innovation. Striking a balance between the benefits and risks of technology requires a collaborative effort involving policymakers, tech companies, ethicists, and the broader society. Only through thoughtful consideration and proactive measures can we mitigate the negative impacts of technology while harnessing its potential for the greater good.

The Dark Side of Technology: Unveiling The Sustainability Question

[violent138]

I love the idea that Bruce takes the Batfam on hikes outside of Gotham, and puts up with the arguing over who goes in what car, packs everyone's favourite snacks, will race with the other car if enough passengers in his egg him on. Bruce generally stays ridicuously quiet while the kids jabber enough to alert everything living in the woods near them but will weigh in once the kids debate who's strong enough to wrestle a bear, chime in on unsolved hiker cases, build fires, and carry anyone that gets tired, all while sneaking awful pictures of them.

[muffinsstimboardhoard]

Dedf1sh/Acht Stimboard

#14 CRUSH

💾 * ❤️ * 💾 * 🎧 * 💾 * ❤️ * 💾

I loved Acht's colour scheme. It really inspired me to make a stimboard. I tagged this as Side Order spoilers just in case.

[transingthoseformers]

a little odd thing I've been putting in my AUs is connecting Protogens/Primagens to Quintessons (whether it was when the Quintessons were alive, or not) . Why? It's fun, and i have a place set aside in my heat for technoorganic races and biomechanical horror. I've gotta brush myself up on the lore, but let me tell you this is one of my most Ideas yet

[cagedchoices]

tag drop, part II

VERSE TAGS SOMETIMES I THINK I NEVER REALLY HAD A CHOICE — S3 PRE. I'M A DEAD MAN EITHER WAY. AT LEAST THIS WAY...I GET TO DECIDE WHO I WANT TO BE — S3 CANON. IF YOUR HEAD EXPLODES WITH DARK FOREBODINGS TOO ; I'LL SEE YOU ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON — S3 POST. EVERYTHING UNDER THR SUN IS IN TUNE ; BUT THE SUN IS ECLIPSED BY THE MOON — S4 PRE. I AM THE ONE WHO BROUGHT THIS UPON US AND I AM THE ONE WHO HAS TO END IT — S4 CANON. WHATEVER I AM...I'VE DIED BEFORE...THIS ISN'T SO BAD — S4 POST. MAYBE YOU'LL HAVE BETTER LUCK WITH THE NEXT GUY — FIDELITY. AS SOON AS YOU STOP RUNNING EVERYONE ELSE STARTS TO CATCH UP — MODERN V1. THAT'S THE WAY EVERYTHING'S GOING TO BE SOMEDAY...BETTER LIVING THROUGH TECHNOLOGY — MODERN V2. NEVER BEEN OUT THIS FAR. IT'S SO...EMPTY — S1 AU. THINK WE JUST BECAME PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE — PEAKY BLINDERS.

[jim-fetter-illustrations]

I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus

Humanity celebrated the potential for digital technology to unleash an entirely new collective human potential, even if the culpability for our predicament was entirely greed for more, and more of everything and anything this new computer, followed by the cell phone technology would give us, and the attitude was Damn the Torpedoes, full speed ahead,.... to dismiss the risk of what might we become.

Technology media told us all to come on in, the water is fine,... and 98% of us did just that, making billionaires out of garage start up geeks, that if we passed on the street wouldn't even notice.

Does anyone now accept any of the blame for today’s combined plagues of disinformation, economic inequality, automation, and weaponized memetics?

Nope, they are mostly too busy in court fighting lawsuit, after lawsuit, after lawsuit by someone who was harmed in some way from the new technology, and after all a trillion dollar technology does attract it's share of grifters wanting to cash in.

Like ants at a picnic, they will come if you bring food......

In an interview Steve Jobs said as much that humanity was making a pact with the devil, so he named his company APPLE to give the masses access to the forbidden fruit, the tree of knowledge, and fully disclosing the fact of no turning back now, you've done sold your soul to the dark side.

And we all agreed, I mean didn't we,............. by the way Steve jobs renounced Christianity, he couldn't fathom the thought of christianity's god's bloody history of killing those that wouldn't believe.

And we bit into that apple that looked like our newfound power,.... not to mention all the cool video games we could fanatically shoot our opponents in, and play out our deepest desires,........... and exactly when did all the newfound school shootings start?

Think about it.

Many of the creators of that digital connectivity knew it would end up overwhelming a society accustomed to privacy, a limited number of social contacts, and news edited by experts from above. They understood that recording everything one said or did into a permanent database would pose moral, legal, and reputational challenges. They understood they were moving the masses who partook into a world where thinking would no longer be a personal activity but a collective one.

And today EVERYTHING is linked to the computer or cell phone, and without one or the other life is hard,.......... that's the way it was designed to be so people would have to depend on it, like they do food to survive.

I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus and we don't even know it......

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Everything I've Ever Written (on Tumblr)

I have been writing online since 2016. As a result, I have quite the few short stories listed below! They're all from different parts in my writing journey and I hope you enjoy.

If you'd like to read what I currently put out, please consider supporting me on Patreon (X)

Cinderella Doesn't Believe in Fairy Tales

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Part 4 / Part 5 /Part 6

Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9

Destiny Universe

You Are the Demon King

The Hero and Hope (part 1) (part 2)

Being Villagers

Heroes and Villains

Therapist for Villains

Juniper and Discus

Self Destruct Villain (flash fiction)

Dandelion (A Villain Story)

You Help Kill Heroes

You are the Shark Hero

Mist into a Tempest

The Civilian and the Reluctant Hero

No Heroes Here

The Spoiler (humor, flash fiction)

You are Legacy

Hero in Title

Dark Lord's Former Coworker

One Minute

The Fae:

You Become Powerful

Your Friend Takes Your Name

Larkin and Yvette

Debt Must Be Repaid (humor flash fiction)

Going to the Hill

The Fae are Free

When They Don't Know (submitted to elsewhereuniversity)

The Chosen One

The Chosen One's Parents

Fate and Mercy and Dead Girls

Amulet to Save Her

Hero's Apprentice (Flash fiction)

The Aftermath of the Chosen One

Wizards Stole My Brother

You are the Chosen One's Knight

The Chosen One is a History Major

You are the Most Powerful Magic User

Time Restarts and She Remembers

Better the Witch than the Kid

Witches

It Was in a Name

The Good Witch of Hawthorne

Berthe the Green Witch

Cursed Mold (flash fiction)

Love isn't Enough

I Can't Believe it's not Proper Adjudication

Devil Deals

The Devil You Know

The Ritual

They Summoned Her on Halloween (flash fiction)

Fairytale Retellings

Ariel and Ursula (age appropriate)

The Gods

Zeus' Son

Faith in Technology

Sci-Fi

Six Red Bulls and Persistence

The Sound of Silence

Emmaline and the Apartment

Humans are Vengeful

Humans Know War (that's why we have diplomacy)

Criminals Forced to Live on as AI (flash fiction)

Misc Fantasy

Wind-Speaker

Wind-Speaker and Her Wife

You Will Become

The Sirens and Leona (flash fiction)

Eldritch Princess (flash fiction)

Princess Maria and the Dragon

Princess Maria is Kidnapped

Immortals are Afraid of Change

Fiona the Dragon

A Violently Won War

Meta Stories

An Abstract Concept

Narrative Town

Narrative Town: Uncle Ralph

Princess Phaedra Breaks

You are a Horror Movie Villain

Ghost Stories

Malevolent Spirits

Your House is Haunted by an Anime Pillow

Don't Open the Door

Grandma's House

Who Is? (flash fiction)

A Face (flash fiction)

Misc.

You Choose Your Fate in Hell

Time Paradox (flash fiction)

You are an Assassin

Multiple Dimension Serial Killer (flash fiction)

An Exercise in Mary Sue

She Comes Back from the Hospital (tw eating disorder)

Roses and Evil (mental health flash fiction)

Big Brother

A Conversation About Anger

Punching Depression

Two Sides (flash fiction)

Immortal Serial Killer in Prison

Theater Romance (flash fiction)

The Lady and the Knight (flash fiction)

Different (flash fiction)

[reallytoosublime]

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, refers to the capability of machines or computer systems to mimic and simulate human intelligence processes. These processes include learning from experiences, reasoning to solve problems, understanding natural language, recognizing patterns, and making decisions. AI enables computers to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as understanding speech, recognizing images, playing games, and even driving cars.

AI Ethics: Navigating the Dark Side of Artificial Intelligence

[youtubemarketing1234]

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, refers to the capability of machines or computer systems to mimic and simulate human intelligence processes. These processes include learning from experiences, reasoning to solve problems, understanding natural language, recognizing patterns, and making decisions. AI enables computers to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as understanding speech, recognizing images, playing games, and even driving cars.

AI techniques can vary widely, and they include machine learning, neural networks, natural language processing, computer vision, and more. Machine learning, in particular, is a subset of AI that involves training algorithms to learn patterns from data and improve their performance over time.

AI ethics is a critical and evolving field that addresses the ethical challenges and concerns arising from the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. As AI systems become increasingly integrated into various aspects of our lives, from healthcare to finance, entertainment to transportation, it's essential to navigate the potential "dark side" of AI to ensure its responsible and beneficial use.

Navigating the dark side of AI ethics requires a multidisciplinary approach involving technology experts, ethicists, policymakers, and society as a whole. By addressing these concerns proactively, we can maximize the benefits of AI while minimizing its potential negative impacts.

Addressing the dark side of AI requires a combination of robust regulations, responsible development practices, transparency, and ongoing research to mitigate potential risks and ensure that AI technologies are aligned with human values and interests. It's important for governments, industries, researchers, and the general public to work together to navigate these challenges and maximize the positive impacts of AI while minimizing its potential negative consequences.

AI Ethics: Navigating the Dark Side of Artificial Intelligence

[bobbiedlifeinphil]

How Facial Recognition Technology Changes Peoples Lives

[daisyachain]

Mom has called a BP2 night having gotten it out from the library. This movie is boring.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How lock-in hurts design

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of "paving the desire path." A "desire path" is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.

Desire paths aren't always great (Wikipedia notes that "desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security"), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product.

This method is widely heralded as a means of "co-innovating" between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths.

Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it's much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features.

Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type "RT" and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter's core feature-set.

Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/

This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we'll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win!

But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them.

That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That's the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for "how do I install an ad-blocker":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It's the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for "circumvention" of access controls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths.

An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction.

Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a "revealed preference." This is an intellectually unserious tautology: "you do this, so you must like it":

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html

Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a "preference" or a "choice" is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the "preferences" that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of "moral hazard": economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist.

The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on ("users just want relevant ads" is such an obvious lie that doesn't merit any serious discussion):

https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/

Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don't work the way that the designers' bodies do:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn't anticipate, that's the user's fault:

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history. "Sure," John Deere execs say, "we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today's farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore."

Spying on your users to control them is a poor substitute asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can't be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want.

Our policymakers swear loyalty to "innovation" but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

Image: Belem (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desire_path_%2819811581366%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[shortfeedshq]

Get Ready for a Mind-Blowing Ride: Black Mirror Season 6 is Coming to Netflix!

The popular sci-fi anthology series “Black Mirror” is set to return for its sixth season on Netflix. The announcement was made via a teaser trailer, which also revealed the release date for the upcoming season. The trailer hinted at the themes that the new episodes will explore, including social media, artificial intelligence, and the dark side of technology. The full cast for the new season has…

[glow-in-the-dark-death]

Smile For The Camera

~

Tim was excited to try out his new camera, it was a rather old model that he found in a pawn shop, some parts looked like they were just barely functioning when he bought it but with some repairs he managed to do it would hold on, hopefully.

He went around the manor snapping a few quick photos to test out the settings, seeing that they came out a bit discolored and slightly blurry at the edges but otherwise worked quite well for its age.

He looked down at the camera to see how a picture of one of the family photos that was hanging on the wall came out, and then quickly looked down at the camera again,

There in what would be a normal if a bit blurry photo of the family stood a stranger.

The stranger looked back at him with a bright dimpled grin, he would fit right in,there in the photo with his black hair and blue eyes.

His eyes almost looked like they were gazing back at him, they held amusement, almost like he had just shared an inside joke.

Tim looked up at the photo and then back at the camera.

The boy appeared only on his camera, there was no sight of him on the photo on the wall.

He took another photo,

Then another.

That same boy appeared in the other photos that were hanging on the wall.

Tim took a step back.

There in the camera showed the boy smiling down at Bruce.

Bruce who was an infant being held in between Martha and Thomas Wayne.

The being boy looking the same age, not seeming to have aged a day between the photo with Bruce as a baby and the most recent family photo.

~

Danny Ghost Price of the GZ doing side quests through time for ClockWork getting emotionally attached to the Wayne family: " Let me just join in on the family photos it's not like I'll actually appear on them with these normal non ecto contaminated cameras."

Tim finding the only ecto contaminated piece of technology outside of Amity Park: " Why does it glow in the dark?"

~

Just an Idea