The Cyber Show on "Weaponised Antisocial Technology"
The Cyber Show has this new article which discusses "an era of technology that benefits its user to one of openly hostile and socially transgressive tech."
To quote some bits:
Technology has been changing the maturation process since the 1950s. A generation of children, mainly in the US, were raised entirely by television while their parents worked for the capitalists. A profound insight into those psychological effects is given by Ondi Timoner's biographical documentary of Josh Harris, We Live In Public. The happy ending of that movie is where Harris eventually rejects his junk persona and adventures off to Africa to teach basketball in a village school where he "finds humanity". But the legacy he leaves is the prototype of the dot-com douche-bag, a damaged, socially hostile techno-brat, a harbinger of a coming generation.[...]
Let's rewind for a moment… The most immediate example of anti-social technology is the automobile. Using one is convenient, at a cost to the rest of humanity. Even in the 1880s, when roads already existed for pedestrians, horses and bicycles, they were unwelcome. However, they were not illegal, and society soon incorporated the transport benefits of the internal combustion engine. People and societal norms adapted. A century later the planet's atmosphere is in ruins, yet still we do not chastise anyone who drives.
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While in some US towns the citizens tear down Flock cameras, and many governments have blacklisted companies like NSO, push-back from democratic governments is weak and uncoordinated. Governments cannot overcome their own conflicted position, to form surveillance pacts with private tech power and to manage their own secret totalitarian urges. Paradoxically that means increasing erosion of the rule of law, more cyber-crime and even a threat to state power, which will be hoisted by its own petard once the technofascist "agreement" turns sour.
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High quality "grown-up thoughts" require high effort. The hard work of training data (life) may span 20 to 80 years. Whatever life throws at you; School. Playground. Sports field. Maths lecture. Parents. Priests. A boss. Fitting in. Leadership. A vocational calling. Kids and dependants. Ageing… And after all that, every one of us eight billion instances turns out to be a unique version, distinct from every other.
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Weaponisation of commonplace tech is complex and as much a cultural as technical issue. The confusion of civilian and military spaces through private intelligence, data brokers, hackers for hire and so on, presents a problem to both civic life and the military. We train "ethical hackers" but in reality this is governed by nothing but an informal code of "only use your powers for good". A market for mercenary weaponised infosec is one thing… but putting such tools into the hands of every disgruntled employee, cheated spouse, spurned lover, and over-ambitious businessman with low morals, is a disaster. That's exactly what "cheat your way through life" tools portend, because there is abolutely no way that any semblence of "guardrails" are going to hold on agentic language models.
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I quit academia after 35 years as a university professor because the UK system had become morally derelict and unfit for teaching, learning or honourable research. That poison spread around the world.from British universities that were happy to part money from gullible "bums on seats" - particularly desperate overseas students whose families had spent everything on the hopes of their children. They were also happy to sell (via professors such as myself) offensive skills to known overseas adversaries and cybercriminals.
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Wearing "smart glasses", installing cameras in the bedroom of a frail older person, or using an app like "Cluely" is a signifier of fundamental hostility, however smoothly these products are marketed as "assistants" or whatever.