Tech Watch

Tracking the Rise of Technology and Artificial Intelligence

(Frequent Updates) 

Technological advancements, including the rise of artificial intelligence and big data, promise a future world of great benefits.  But those advancements also come with many challenges and dangers. Will a high-tech Utopian future emerge, or are we evolving into a cyberpunked Dystopia? 

Articles Selection and Commentary by Timothy Gamble

• 10-21-2020 - NASA landed a spacecraft on an asteroid! The OSIRIS-REx mission will hopefully retrieve a debris sample (rocky pebbles and dust) and return it to Earth. Contact with the surface was successfully made, and the spacecraft safely took off again. We won't know if a useful sample size was collected until the spacecraft returns to Earth. (Articles: MIT Technology Review, Space.com, Science News). 
• Good article on Tech Republic website: How to protect your privacy when selling your phone
• The backlash against Big Tech censorship continues to grow:  Senator Kelly Loeffler Introduces Bill to Stop ‘Un-American’ Big Tech Censorship of Free Speech 
• Ted Cruz: Big Tech Believes It Has Authority over What the Press Is Allowed to Report
• Big Tech is so desperate for access to China's huge market that they now do China's propaganda work for them. Latest example: Facebook Whistleblower Exposes "Hate-Speech Engineering" Group, Staffed With Chinese Nationals
• For those concerned about the Big Tech gatekeepers of information, two alternatives to Wikipedia are InfoGalactic and Conservapedia. 
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• 10-20-2020 - My most recent article is up on the Dystopian Survival website:   Protecting Yourself and Your Family in Cyberspace. Its about  lot more than just an antivirus program and strong passwords. Its about your actions, too. 
• Interesting article:  The 7 Best Private Search Engines.  My favorite remains DuckDuckGo. An honorable mention goes to SwissCows, especially for those wanting a family-friendly alternative that does a good job of filtering out porn. 
• The rise of technology and the Internet promised a "democratization of information," as the elite ruling classes lose control, and information becomes available to all. But what has really happened is that only the gatekeepers of information have changed. Now Big Tech controls the flow of information. Do we really trust these massive multi-national corporations?  
• Tweet from Steve Hilton:  Big Tech's cover-up of the Biden/China story has rightly been called "Orwellian" -  but it's not just about Orwell's '1984' - tech founders like Zuckerberg and @jack once said they were "democratizing information" - now THEY'RE the ones controlling it. reminds me of 'Animal Farm'
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• 10-12-2020 - How Did People Have Conversations Back Before Tech Oligarchs Were There To Police Them? (Zero Hedge 10-11-2020) - Do we really need Big Tech to protect us from ourselves? 
• Facing Down Big Tech: Censorship, Free Speech, And A Stolen Election (The Federalist 10-8-2020) - The power of Big Tech to control speech, and therefore control thought, is awesome, and is one of the greatest dangers of a high-tech civilization.