(10) Living in the Age of AI

Written Script

Just like agenda-setting, AI plays a big part in what is being put in front of you. This brings so many benefits, but what is the government not telling you? What do they have on you that affects your daily life? Are they watching you right now? In the Age of AI by Frontline, they warn us that they are watching and they have so much data on us, it is CRAZY.  

Increasing Inequality 

One example they talk about is that cashier roles in Washington,  D.C., are one of the most common jobs, but they are highly vulnerable to automation. Other jobs like clerical work, HR, and finance are primarily run by women, but in future generations, these jobs will be replaced by robots and AI. Along with that, Molly Kinder highlights that many Americans lack financial stability and cannot afford higher education or the time to take off, which results in minimum wage jobs being the ideal source of income. But even these minimum wage jobs are being replaced by automation. This economic insecurity, plus automation, is at the forefront of the crash of society.

As larger tech companies use AI to personalize services and increase revenue as a whole, this is at the expense of our privacy. Shoshana Zuboff, an American author, professor, and philosopher at Harvard Business School, describes how tech companies are profiting by exploiting private human experiences and turning them into predictive data. Known as "surveillance capitalism," our data is basically raw material for profit, raising concerns about the privacy we thought we had when signing up for these sites. Although this can be bad, Google has used it to adapt to its consumers and track their behavior, giving them the ads they "want to see" rather than random ads that they are not interested in. This increases market dominance and the rise of surveillance capitalism.

Privacy Matters

The new privacy law, written by Alastair Mactaggart, that was passed in 2018 gave California residents the right to ask any company what they have collected on an individual in the past 12 months, as "a right to know." Also, with a click of a button, this sends third-party sites a notification to not sell any information, which honors the third-party opt-out rule that correlates with this law. 

There were three types of groups that were involved in this decision. The ones who agreed with no skepticism on this idea. The ones that had skepticism but knew it was right to raise it, and the ones that denounced this idea and said they don't want regulations, which were mostly the large tech companies, that didn't want to obey this law. In the end, Mactaggart's campaign led to a significant change, marking a milestone in data privacy rights. 

Idea of "Power"

In the video, they talk about how the auto, pharmaceutical, and food industries are better than AI because of their lack of regulations. Lobbyists for big tech companies are pushing for more lenient national privacy standards, which could possibly override stricter regulations like the one in California. AI is integrated into our everyday life. However, its presence often goes unnoticed, and people are unaware of how their data is being transmitted to make decisions for them. 

In China, AI technology is being used 24/7 extensively. Particularly in Xinjiang for the Uyghur Muslim minority, according to the video. Project Sharp Eyes involves cameras at every intersection, train station, and even places that are equipped to show you being analyzed through face recognition right in front of you. This helped everything from human rights abuses to car accidents be resolved.

In Kai-Fu Lee's perspective, he advocates for responsible AI development. He believes that AI could foster democracy, but only if it is carefully managed. He emphasizes the need for global collaboration, ensuring that AI serves the greater good rather than breaking basic human rights.

Reflection

Personally, this hits close to home because in my major, everything is about social media and what we post, focusing on laws and regulations. So when watching this video, I thought about what I have put on the web or searched for in the past years that could possibly be sold to third parties to make a profit out of me. When you think about people watching your every move and listening to what you say or how you say it, it scares me, and I feel like going back to traditional ways with pen and paper could possibly lessen the amount of data they are selling or using for AI improvements.