October 3rd
Fridge? Or is it frig? Or is it frog? I’m pretty sure the consensus was fridge, but maybe that’s just my opinion. In a room of Harvard freshman, we couldn’t decide. For me, this was the most jarring aspect of our discussion today. If some of the smartest minds of our generation couldn’t naturally spell a commonly used word, what other aspects of our minds were deteriorating due to the advent of conveniences such as autocorrect and GPS systems. Do maps on paper still exist (I mean, I know they do, but you get the point)? The real question is, will the human race and society as a whole suffer due to the advent of the so-called Internet of Things? Honestly, I think this question will not fully be answered for many years to come. Perhaps, the lack of a consensus on the spelling of the word fridge during our seminar today is an indicator of the unintended effects of technology on the human mind.
While it’s interesting to consider the effects the Internet and technology are having on the brains of the millennial generation, I also want to discuss the positive and negative effects of the Internet of Things. Personally, I would love the refrigerator in my house to make a shopping list for me so that I don’t need to search the fridge and decide what we need. Countless times I have arrived home with two dozen eggs only to discover there are already a dozen eggs “hiding” in the back of the refrigerator. This is a problem that the Internet of Things could potentially solve by using sensors in my fridge and simply telling me what my family needs more of and what we do not. Sounds great, right? Well, I forgot to mention that this information must be connected to a network. So, what’s the problem? As we learned, the Internet wasn’t created with cybersecurity in mind, so whatever information about my refrigerator is sent to the fridge company via the Internet is no longer solely my information. For all I know, I have a stalker who wants to know when I’m out of milk (unlikely, but anything’s possible). So now the question is if I’m willing to risk safety concerns for the convenience of having a fridge that will make a grocery list for me. Honestly, I’m probably okay with it simply because I don’t associate a high risk with another person knowing what is in my fridge at home. However, this is a major question of the Internet of Things, as well as the major trade-off.
Another great question we discussed was who is responsible for thinking about the moral and ethical standards of the machines that are currently being created. Is it the engineers who build the machines? Or is the people who use them that get to decide what their moral standards are before using them? Obviously, this is another controversial question because no one wants to take responsibility for creating a machine that may go against natural human moral standards. Personally, I’m not sure what my position is on this issue because I think we haven’t quite reached a point in technology that brings in truly difficult questions of morality (I could be wrong).
I’m looking forward to delving farther in to the larger, societal implications of the Internet of Things and more. See you in two weeks!
Ha! I love the way you started this post. I agree with your conclusion in first paragraph that a complete answer won’t be known for years to come, but can you think about what we might decide to track today that could help answer your question years from now? Would the trends in the analysis that come from this data collection tell you something interesting before calamity happens? I don’t know, but I’d love to know what you think.
Jim is the person to discuss the issues you raise in your third paragraph, but if you have a chance to ask some of the world-leading philosophers across campus during your years here, I’d be interested in hearing what they say in response.