The End of Innocence

The Founding Fathers of America were well aware of the dangers of living under a government dictatorship. They firmly established clear written declarations (Articles) and created an abiding United States Constitution that is Supreme Law and the Bill of Rights. Especially, the 5th Amendment which is part of the Bill of Rights protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure.

However, over the last 200 years the predictions of a Big Brother government spying on their own citizens has come true to the point of paranoia. Currently, world news is reporting the NSA debacle with the former NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden stating to American citizens and the world that the NSA and their Terrorist Surveillance Program is not only worldwide, but on all American citizens illegally. Last year, another NSA Whistleblower William Binney in 2012 had warned about “pervasive domestic spying” by the NSA including unlawful surveillance of American citizens who are non-terrorist on American soil.

What’s next? Robotic Drones in some odd future world routinely patrolling the US boarders and flying over local cities to hunt down (undesirable) Americans and using AI (ED-209s) to deal with them unceremoniously without any trail or due process. Slowly, even Freedom of Speech will become obsolete as we move into a Police State where perhaps (with a nod to Ray Bradbury) even reading books will be against the Law.

Later, a form of Thought Police would take over to monitor all into state of compliancy under the New Rule. This is all of course speculation. But even Captain Kirk recognized the danger of any individual who obtains ultimate power and abusing it by quoting Lord Acton, British historian in 1887 who said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Wake up everyone. Peace is Freedom. Freedom is Peace. Let’s keep it that way. Mindless displays of destructive power is not. 

The Future Of A.I.

Many people are simply amazed at what our computers are capable of doing for them, and more amazed by how smart they are, responding almost like ordinary people if not better. With the global integration of smart-machine driven devices like iPhones and handheld mini-super computers making our lives better, there is a slight downside to this rising A.I. (artificial intelligence) taking over nearly all aspect of our lives, our tools, our machines, and electronic devices. But today many top engineers fear that machines are becoming far more intelligent faster than was thought possible. A growing existential threat could be happening if we as humans are not careful with the technological progression of dominating machines moving at a much faster evolutionary state than its creators. From private industries to the US military, all are working toward creating super artificial intelligent machines that will surpass human level intelligence that function perfectly and autonomously like in some science fiction movie. Machines should work for us not against us.*Read the interesting article “Rise of the Machines” in the Sydney Morning Herald by Asher Moses, Technology Editor.