Is the future of technology exciting or terrifying?
Nicholas Bainbridge: News Editor
In recent years, science has been progressing at an alarming rate. I often ponder what wonders and terrors we will arise as technology continues to advance.
The most influential creation in the past several decades has been the Internet. Through the vast network of interconnected devices, humanity has never been so connected. Due to the power of this system, Information is easily shared across the planet every day.
Scientists are still continuing to expand connectivity, spreading the Internet to more devices aside from computers and phones. Several automobile companies have begun developing self-driving cars.
While they are still experimental, business such as Google, Tesla and General Motors have developed their own models of self-driving cars.
These autonomous vehicles are designed to safely and efficiently transport people by minimizing human error and allowing for communication between the cars on the road.
Using GPS, its own internal sensors, as well as data collected by other vehicles, self-driving cars can develop to be more aware of their surroundings than human drivers can. This can help limit the danger of commuting by preventing car crashes that would have been the result of human error.
There are some worrying aspects of self-driving cars. First, cars having interconnectivity opens up the possibility that they could be sabotaged remotely. If someone learned how to interfere with an automatic car’s sensors, or even hack into the vehicle, it would leave the passengers at the nefarious agent’s mercy.
In order to ensure the safety of commuters, companies that create self-driving cars have to have the utmost confidence in the security of their vehicles. Otherwise hackers could cause massive traffic accidents by manipulating multiple vehicles at once.
Cars are not the only things being linked with the internet. We have already begun to see the release of smart home appliances such as the Amazon Echo.
These have had relatively little success in the market so far, seemingly due to cost and a lack of demand, but as the technology improves they may become a commonplace item for middle class households.
These have an enormous amount of potential. Firstly, homes could become small networks of communicating devices, with refrigerators, television sets and other appliances all sharing information, allowing the owner greater control over their home.
If smart home technology becomes integrated into more homes and developed further, it will be possible for people to lock their doors or check to see if they left their oven on from anywhere in their house. Control over one’s house would even be possible away from the building on a smartphone.
However, smart home technology has even worse potential consequences than self driving cars do. Just as someone could use the internet to seize control of an autonomous vehicle, they could take over a house as well.
This would pose an immense danger to any homeowner with an advanced smart home system. First, cameras inside the house could be used to spy on the residents. Furthermore, a thief could unlock the door to the house by hacking into the home’s network.
The prospect of increased interconnectivity is exciting, and could radically improve our lives; however, we should be careful when deciding how much of our lives we want integrated into the Internet.