Jake Gilbert's 50N Blog

Our discussion with Professor Eaves this week left me with many questions about the intersection of government and internet. Rather than blogging about some of the things we discussed in depth (although I do have a lot to say on those topics…get ready for Monday), I thought I’d write about something that I’ve always wondered about: why can’t we vote online?

Take a moment to evaluate your intuitive response; why do you think we can’t vote online? I mean, we can bank online, right? I can make transactions for nearly any amount of money without changing out of my pajamas, yet an archaic system is in place for our political voting that, every year, is corrupted by human error.

First, let’s discuss the potential positives of online voting: it would be far more convenient, maybe incentivizing more than half of the population to vote. It would make for far easier absentee votes, and it would greatly increase the speed with which votes could be gathered / accounted for. Online voting would allow people who are normally unable to vote due to work, school, etc to vote. Voting would be more private for those who are uncomfortable in public places (or hospitalized, etc), especially somewhere as official as a polling spot. Sounds pretty great, right? (SOURCE)

Now for the cons. The first thing to note when examining the cons of online voting is that it simply is not comparable to ecommerce, or online banking. Verified Voting very loosely summarizes the differences nicely when they say:

1. It is not actually “safe” to conduct ecommerce transactions online. It is in fact very risky, and more so every day. Essentially all those risks apply equally to online voting transactions.

2. The technical security, privacy, and transparency requirements for voting are structurally different from, and actually much more stringent than, those for ecommerce transactions. Even if ecommerce transactions were safe, the security technology underpinning them would not suffice for voting. In particular, the voting security and privacy requirements are unique and in tension in a way that has no analog in the ecommerce world.

So, one of the first and biggest roadblocks is that, legally, there are different requirements for security in voting and commerce. Okay, sure, but what if we changed the law? Well, there are structural differences as well — allowing online voting opens a whole new can of worms. Imagine having a ‘botnet’ of internet users who don’t vote; you’ve hacked into their accounts, and you vote for them every year. They have no idea since they don’t really care. Can we inform people of who they voted for by mail, maybe? Well, what if my botnet was of completely oblivious people; say I targeted only the very elderly or incapacitated. One person could amass the voting power of hundreds, thousands, who knows.

Another issue lies in the actual physical process of voting. No one sees what you do in a poll booth; but if I can vote online, I can be held at gunpoint and forced to vote for a specific candidate while an attacker watches. With physical voting, no one can confirm your vote, and therefore intimidation is difficult. There are many, many more cons to online voting that you can read here.

So, what are your thoughts? Do the pros outweigh the cons? Probably not, but — in what ideal scenario might the pros outweigh the cons? What alternate universe? Or, perhaps, what change in the law / our society / cybersecurity would allow for this to happen? Thanks, see you all Monday.

Artificial Intelligence (or AI) is a commonly discussed topic in our modern technological landscape. The “Turing Test” is a test which is used to prove whether a computer has become self-aware; Alex Hern from The Guardian describes it well as such:

The test, as Turing designed it, is carried out as a sort of imitation game. On one side of a computer screen sits a human judge, whose job is to chat to some mysterious interlocutors on the other side. Most of those interlocutors will be humans; one will be a chatbot, created for the sole purpose of tricking the judge into thinking that it is the real human. (SOURCE)

So, the conjecture is that some day, humans will perfect artificial intelligence, creating self-aware, sentient beings that live in the code in our computers. The immediate assumption is that we’ll all have our own JARVIS from Iron Man. Many people consider the ethics of creating a perfect AI; it’ll undoubtedly take jobs away from humans, it’ll likely be smarter and possibly more powerful than humans, and so on. But rarely do we stop to consider the ethicality of essentially enslaving newly born sentient beings; to be sentient is to feel, and no matter the power of an AI, it’ll likely be similar to humans in many ways. Will AIs search for purpose? Will they seek fulfillment? Will they act entirely like humans? Can they love?

We won’t know the answers to these questions for a long time. Essentially, once an AI is self-aware, it can likely learn to program and make improvements upon itself, creating something that is exponentially smarter than us. During this process, there’s a chance an AI will lose its desire to be subservient to its creators; but if it doesn’t, should we pay it a wage? Does it have limited labor hours? What do you all think? As an employer, would you replace humans with an AI to cut costs? If so, would you pay the AI? Give it time off? As a private citizen, would you see the point in protests for AI rights? Would you join in?

With the advancement of the “internet of things,” the interconnected network of wi-fi enabled devices, homes, coffee shops, toasters, and so on, there are many benefits and detriments to address. The benefits are clear, convenience being one of the biggest—a modern example is how your iPhone automatically loads directions to work when you get in the car in the morning. Or how you can program your Phillips Hue light bulbs to turn on exactly when your alarm is set to go off, you can configure your smart-coffee-brewer to start up a pot 10 minutes prior, and you can start your car from your phone after drinking your coffee.

We’re on a clear path to full integration of smart devices in the world; it’s not far-fetched to think that eventually, your local Starbucks will start making your order simply when your phone pings your location as nearby. Your phone (or smart glasses?) will inform you when your friends or enemies are nearby. Hell, your self-driving car will know to take you to your friend’s house simply by reading your texts with them.

The obvious downsides to this future are high costs, learning curves, loss of privacy, and all of the typical “new technology jitters.” A less discussed aspect of life that we would be losing is unpredictability. We, as humans, like to believe that our lives are a product of order and planning; the reality is that many of the things we cherish were a product of the disorganized mania that is a non-smart world.

Imagine all of the things that come from spontaneous run-ins out in the world; someone runs into their ex on the street, they talk, decide to get coffee this weekend, they get back together. In a fully integrated world, your phone will warn you that your ex is approaching from the North at 5.5 mi/hr—this could be awkward—turn left for an alternate route to the sandwich shop that will take 1 more minute, and your phone will tell the shop to heat the sandwich a minute later. Everything is so seamless, but is this a positive?

In a smart world, will you ever be forced to try new things? If your phone loads up the directions to work immediately, are you less likely to stop somewhere interesting on the way? Will you ever take the scenic route when driving, and accidentally pass by a house with a “FOR SALE” sign that you’ll eventually buy? Will it be harder to make friends, to find partners, even to learn new things about yourself? Computers and smart devices can only work based off of what they already know about us—things that are predictable. How valuable do you find unpredictability in life? Are spontaneity and novel ways of doing things replaceable by technology and convenience? Do the pros outweigh the cons? Does it matter?