The Tech Evolution in 2020: Can We Trust the Direction We’re Heading?
By: Jazmine Myleigh
Tags: Covid 19, Social Media, Social Change, Digital Life, Technology

The Tech Evolution in 2020: Can We Trust the Direction We’re Heading?

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

In documentary film, The Social Dilemma trending on Netflix, director Jeff Orlowski creates a breakthrough statement within the evolution of social media and popular search engines. He gives us special insight from innovators of highly-used apps and technology, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. They leave their viewers of the documentary informed, but most of all, scared.

Screenshot from The Social Dilemma on Netflix.

The Direction in Social Justice Reform

Rewinding time to a few months ago, there were protests outside many cities in America, reaching across countries during a global pandemic and record-breaking unemployment rates.

Demonstrators held signs made of flimsy paper and ripped pieces of cardboard, written in thick Sharpie or black paint that said, “BLACK LIVES MATTER.”

It was the only thing that fled social media for weeks, one case after another due to the tragic death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor (not to mention, all the deaths that occurred due to white supremacy beforehand and during). Collectively, people noticed there was a problem within our legal system and justice being served. Many questions go into play, but most of all, people were searching for ways to reform.

As a democracy, the majority was on-board to remodel the system, but it was obvious that the government, political parties and the stamp of our Republican president were against it. Many would fight in support of Black lives, but left running around like headless chickens, crying out for help with barely a direction.

The flooded response that many resulted to was their voice on social media.

“Here’s How You Can Help” posts laid everywhere on the news feed of every platform, reposts of brutal attacks from across the country to emotionally engage followers (“spreading awareness”), and “Support Black-Owned Businesses” was advertised on Yelp, Google and fellow followers posts as well.

This happened for a few weeks to soon die out as people went on with their lives.

Popular post on Instagram stating ways to contribute.

What else could the Average Joe do, other than fully studying social political justice? We could stamp “Black Lives Matter” in front of the White House all we want, but what change is going to happen?

Of course we could say on the other hand, noting the effectiveness of banning no-knock warrants, titled after Breonna Taylor, there are reforms happening. Nevertheless, it is a big ship that takes all of its effort to move in a positive direction, as long as everyone uses their force to do so.

Collectively, people want to do good for humanity, and this is truth. The question lies in: what are individuals’ notions of “doing good for humanity”? How is this achieved, enough to make difference and initiate an apparent change?

Relating back to The Social Dilemma

The documentary-drama hybrid was the in the Top 10 Trending on Netflix during the month it dropped (specifically Sept. 9, 2020).

Writing this about two months later from the release date, the film is something to touch the minds of many people, but does it truly leave an imprint that viewers will keep in mind a few months, or years, after today?

How effective is an hour-and-a-half documentary on Netflix going to be in the future, even with sources such as credible technologists, researchers, writers and activists?

Director Jeff Orlowski mentioned the strain it took to find the right people, let alone, allow them to feel comfortable with this type of documenting:

“Some were really difficult to get. Some were difficult to schedule. Every person that we interviewed, we could then say — we’ve spoken to all these people, would you consider it?”

Photo from JeffOrlowski.com

With many of Netflix’s viewers watching this award-winning documentary, popular opinions rise about the truth in the matter of technology.

Orlowski states in an interview:

“There needs to be enough engineers that say, this is code, we can reprogram it. Let’s do things differently, let’s use a different business model, let’s do things with society’s interest at heart.”

Being the director and founder of The Social Dilemma, noticing the issues in mental health, democracy, and discrimination with partners such as Center for Humane Technology, California Partners Project, and Digital Wellness Collective, it’s a no-brainer to know that his best interest is in mind.

However in the comments of that statement, a writer notes:

“It’s ridiculous to iterate the same way of thinking — as a ‘solution’ — over the problems of the last iteration. For starters, you could un-think the notion of ‘business models’ altogether.”

There is a paradox within the problem-to-solution with technology. It’s become a large monster, in which the profit of social media margins are irreversible. There is a little-to-no chance that we could undo social media and the use of technology. The thought of un-thinking a business mindset is difficult while social media runs by business associates.

In the book, “We, Robots: Staying Human in the Age of Big Data,” Curtis White iterates:

“For technocrats, hope usually takes this form: ‘Technology may be the source of the problem, but it will also be the source of the solution.’”

With this, the tech and business industries inevitably believe that the source of the problem will one day become the solution, and this alone is arguable by the issues with social media addiction, self-esteem, the polarization of our political beliefs and so on.

How far could society lend their trust to these tech and business industries? It has come as far as a science.

The ban for TikTok was dramatic alone, and colleges currently offer data science as part of their major of curriculum with a focus in social media:

“Scientists from Cornell and the University of California-San Francisco worked in conjunction with Facebook to alter the text snippets posted in the news feeds of more than 700,000 users. […] user groups were then analyzed to determine whether or not the posts they read had altered their emotions in line with the direction the news feed had been manipulated.”

It is easy to feel invaded by privacy and as a product of wealthy corporations when they’re fighting for screen time and attention to make profit. There is no doubt that there is an ethical issue that steps beyond the line of human privacy.

How far will scientists take their studies to gain more money on the business aspect of the spectrum, and showcase it as convenience?

Sure, if an individual was searching to buy a pair of glasses on Google Chrome and ads arise on Instagram for Zenni, GlassesUSA, and TIJN, it helps a consumer, but there is this overall sense of control in which they’re not only giving recommendations. They’re predicting, and even creating, the public’s overall character traits.

Is this something that we could shift? Will there be any forms of regulation in which people would be making equal to the amount of profit they’re making with human psychology right now?

My culture shock

I remember watching a Disney Channel movie that came out in 1999 called Smart House. As a little girl, scanning my hand to grant access into identifying and analyzing my skin, hair and eye color, body weight, and height was only a part of my imagination.

Now, it is the everyday reality in which my face is scanned to grant access into my iPhone. It is a rising concern where technology is analyzing human emotions, predicting human interests, therefore creating interests for the user. Little did I think it would go this far in such a short amount of time.

It is inevitable for humanity to further limits of innovation, but in the last two decades there has been major improvement to technology that is unquestionable.

Screenshot from Smart House YouTube trailer.

Technology and creating a COVID-19 vaccine

A handful of pharmaceutical companies race towards creating a vaccine for coronavirus. According to International Medicine Specialist Dr. Carrie Madej, some of the most popular and fast-paced creators of a coronavirus vaccine, mainly focusing on Moderna, is creating their vaccine based upon the idea of transhumanism.

She explains in a YouTube video that companies are in the process of certifying mRNA, which four of the nine candidates are in pursuit of creating a virus. Two of the four are in Phase II of the process (Pfizer and Moderna). News sources claim that Pfizer’s vaccine is 90% effective.

Modified and synthetic RNA (stated as mRNA) would use nanotechnologies to code coronavirus out of people’s systems. At the end of the day, the world would be much better without coronavirus; a problem arises with transfection, creating us to be genetically modified organisms. This would be as a natural fruit with no preservatives versus a smaller fruit with preservatives. Mankind would automatically be less healthy than right now, simply from a vaccination. mRNA is a questionable choice due to the risk. 100% of the 45 testers had unhealthy symptoms after the testing of Moderna’s mRNA.

These nano-technologies with the mRNA also act as a light source for scanning medical records and connecting directly to any form of Artificial Intelligence. Refer to the video for more explanation.

According to Moderna:

“To date, Moderna has been granted over 100 patents in the United States, Europe, Japan and other jurisdictions, protecting fundamental inventions in the mRNA therapeutics space, with several hundred additional pending patent applications covering key advances in the field.”

Unarguably, if Moderna completes all phases to the vaccine, they will have patents on human’s genetically-modified RNA and DNA.

This isn’t me offering conspiracy theories, they are technological advances that are happening as we speak in both mental and physical attributes. The rapid growth was unheard of a decade ago, and it’s happening too quickly, to the point where humanity cannot keep up with the facts.

Where do we go from here?

In the sense of power, we need moral and ethical people that have humanity and the future state of our planet in mind; those who want to see the generations after us, and those after them, thriving in an environment that is not a discounted idea of what we have now, let alone, a natural environment at all.

There is a heavy parallel with the technological evolution within mental and physical alterations: corporations are creating and innovating for convenience and profit. As we live in convenience today, there may not be a chance for tomorrow.

Wildfires are raging on the Pacific coast reaching all the way up to Washington, hurricanes hit along the East coast, and before this countless wildfires cleared animals out of their natural habitat in Australia and South America. It gets worse year by year, and generates enough attention to create a temporary uproar and some nonprofit organizations and donors to help the cause. This idea is lovely, and I am not trying to sound like a pessimist toward the state of life.

Although, since there is a major evolution in terms of social media, search engines, the physical state of our health and planet, all having to do with the ways we innovate, it is our job to keep up with these advancements; it is important to ask if this is the right direction without getting too caught up in the godlike state of being human.

Heavy-heartedly, many people want to stand up for what is right, but it gets a bit hazy and difficult searching for a direction, especially when it takes time to do so; yet the whole time, the solution is simple.

As Jeff Orlowski states his final comments on The Social Dilemma, he says:

“So I’m hoping the film can help be a wake-up call, and help us realign technology to serve humanity.”

Educators, students, and humanity-at-large need to research before trusting corporations and their motives. The most effective solution is to keep the existence of humanity thriving for the future to come instead of living out of the mind of convenience for right now.