Has Artificial Intelligence Become Too Real?

As the digital age has progressed, internet safety has become a much larger concern. FRONTLINE made the film “In the Age of A.I.” to discuss this issue, concentrating on Artificial Intelligence.  The film analyzes A.I. and the implications it has on our society, security, longevity.  A.I. is being implemented in more and more jobs every day, as well as other aspects of daily life.  A.I. has potential to be a great addition to humanity, but there is also an element of danger that comes with it.

These elements were first recognized when problems in national security and digital privacy arose.

Internet privacy plays a large part in how we as humans are monitored. This can be both a positive and negative aspect of artificial intelligence.  For one, A.I. collects personal information to put into their algorithms and better serve the user by knowing their preferences.  These algorithms help the A.I. to find what they need from the ads they are presented, the news they would want to read most, and other things as well.

A con to this could be how this information can be used to control the consumer.  These companies can use these algorithms to access more information than the consumer would care to give, and use that to present them with products that the consumer is most likely to buy, potentially extorting them into spending more money than they otherwise would.  This is just an example of how the companies can use personal information to get more out of their consumers for their own gain.

In the lens of national security, we have reached a point where mega companies are seemingly invincible.  For example, Facebook getting hit with a multi-million dollar fine for their use of AI inquired information is not the same as if the average citizen were to be fined the same amount.  Money isn’t an issue for them, and that makes it an issue of national security when there is no real way to keep them in check.

Alastair Mactaggart is a man who got about 600,000 people to sign a petition for the government to allow people to have a say in whether or not their data can be sold by companies.  This is big for online security and identity theft, because once that information is sold, there’s no telling what could happen to it.

EOTO Presentations: The History of Netflix

In 1998, Blockbuster was all the rage.  They were dominating the DVD rental industry, and really had no competition whatsoever.  Enter: Netflix.

Netflix was founded by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings, who intended Netflix to compete with Blockbuster in the video rental business.  Their hook to put them ahead of Blockbuster was that rather than having franchised store locations, they were all online and offered delivery via mail to their subscribers.  Their competitive advantage over Blockbuster only grew over time, as in 2007 they began offering online streaming.

This led to Blockbuster completely ceasing operations in September of 2010. This left Netflix as the sole supplier of DVD rentals.  Not long after this, in 2011 to be exact, Netflix halted their DVD delivery program and moved to streaming only.  This proved to be a smart move, as since then, Netflix’s streaming service has exploded and is now the largest in the world.  Not only does Netflix provide a way to instantly stream shows and movies that you could’ve seen on the big screen, but in 2013 they began producing their own television shows.  This began with House of Cards, and now Netflix has hundreds of original shows.  In 2015, Netflix released their first original movie, Beasts of No Nation, and since then their movie production has increased at an exponential rate.  As of 2021, Netflix has over 203 million subscribers, and that number won’t drop any time soon.  Their competition is also on the rise, however.  Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and HBO Max are all hot on Netflix's tail and vying to be the top streaming source in the world.