WEBVTT - Rerun: TechStuff's Spooky Halloween Spectacular! 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.560 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.840 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.840 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:22.440 tech are you, y'all? I'm working on an episode that's 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.000 still in progress. I wanted to get something to you 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:28.640 today while I still work on that episode, and I thought, well, 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.800 it's spooky season. I've got quite a few episodes of 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.000 tech Stuff that relate to spooky topics, and I thought 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.320 this would be a fun one. It originally published on Halloween, 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:43.840 October thirty first, twenty to eighteen. It is titled tech 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:50.600 Stuff's Spooky Halloween Spectacular and I hope you enjoy as 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:55.800 I revisit an article from my old employer, House stuff 0:00:55.840 --> 0:01:01.760 Works ten scary modern technologies. Enjoy this classic episode of 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:03.640 tech Stuff, and I'll have a new one for you 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.880 on Wednesday. 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.640 Either everybody, and Welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host, 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:19.600 Jonathan Strictly, the executive vampire here at Hall Stuff Works Halloween. 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.160 If you're listening to this on Halloween otherwise, that was 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.280 the worst possible introduction I could have given for this episode, and. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:33.639 I should feel badly about it, but I don't. Nope, 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:38.080 But in celebration of Halloween, we are going to take 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:42.600 a look at spooky tech, or you know, scary tech, 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:44.920 or at least some technology that could at least be 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.880 kind of creepy. See here's the problem I'm running into, y'all. 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:53.640 I've already done an episode about tech in Haunted House Attraction, 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.559 so that's finished. I already did one on ghost hunting 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:01.360 technology years ago where I gave a skeptical view of 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:05.800 what all that was about. And sooner or later, after 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.720 you do a few years of a technology podcast, you 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:10.680 start to run out of the fun stuff like that. 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:15.239 So for this episode, I turned to the house Stuffworks 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.600 website and I pulled up a classic article, which is 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.160 also always a dangerous thing when you're talking technology. But 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:27.480 this article is titled ten Scary modern Technologies. It was 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.160 co written by David Russ and my former editor and 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:35.799 Tech Stuff co host Chris Pollette. So get ready for 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:40.600 some tech that goes bump in the night, I guess. 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:46.120 And actually, to be more serious, the technology I'm listing 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:50.960 here does not fall into the supernatural or ghostly categories 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:55.560 at all. The technology represents stuff that could be unsettling 0:02:56.480 --> 0:03:00.480 or at worst could cause massive enormous problem due to 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:05.519 overreach or unintended consequences. So there are some serious intreges 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:07.720 in here, even though I'm having a little bit of 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.959 fun with the presentation. So let us get started. Number 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:17.760 ten on the list hollow sonics and the audio spotlight system. 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:22.880 This is more in the creepy, unsettling vein technology that 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.320 focuses sound. That's what this is all about. It's focusing 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.600 sound into a narrow beam, which provides the opportunity for 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:36.720 ultra targeted sound for stuff like advertising. It's not necessarily creepy, 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.920 but it's not necessarily welcome either. But imagine that you're 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.440 walking through a store and just as you're passing in 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:49.640 front of a certain store item, let's say it's cookie 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:54.000 crisp cereal, and you start hearing a voice whispering to you, Hey, 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.240 that cookie crisp looks pretty good. It might seem really weird, 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.240 this little disembodied voice, And as soon as as you 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.640 get past a certain point, you can't hear it anymore. 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:05.640 You just have this experience as you're going through the store, 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:10.280 you keep hearing these targeted sounds in very narrow spots 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:12.080 and as soon as you're out of those spots, you 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.400 can't hear it. That sounds pretty creepy, right, Well, how 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.320 does it work well? According to the company, the secret 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.640 is in the size of the sound waves compared to 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.040 the size of the sound source. The company states that 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.640 if you have a sound source that is much larger 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:30.960 than the comparable size of the sound waves it's producing, 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.919 you get more directionality out of your sound so you 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.520 can focus it more like a beam. So if you 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.480 were to create loud speakers that are much much much 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.960 larger than the sound waves they're producing, and sound waves 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.919 can measure from a few inches up to several feet 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.920 in size, you could direct those sound waves in a beam, 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.760 more like a directional beam, rather than having them propagate 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.960 outward in all equal directions. But that would not work 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.440 very well for something like targeted adzing, because you would 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.680 have to have these enormous speakers perched behind the cheerios 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.000 and that would be very distracting. So this company has 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:13.320 gone with an approach that has these devices producing ultrasonic 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:19.320 beams of sound. Ultrasonic sound waves are very very tiny. 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:24.120 They're also normally imperceptible at least directly, they are imperceptible 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.280 to us. We cannot hear in this frequency. They do 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.960 have a very strong directionality as a result of the 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:34.800 way they are generated. So, according to the company, as 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.680 the ultrasonic beam travels through the air, the inherent properties 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.880 of the air cause the ultrasound to change shape in 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:45.760 a predictable way. This gives rise to frequency components in 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.520 the audible band which can be accurately predicted and therefore 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:54.360 precisely controlled. By generating the correct ultrasonic signal, we can 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.919 create within the air itself any sound desired. So, in 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.640 other words, it's the interaction of these ultrasonic frequencies with 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:07.360 the air itself that causes the ultrasonic frequencies to change, 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.760 and then you produce these audible frequencies. And because this 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:16.800 is all very controllable in a predictable environment, you can 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.720 produce whatever sounds you want. This is based off the 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.839 work of an inventor named Woody Norris. He demonstrated this 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.920 technology at a TED talk in the early two thousands. 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.400 Rather than generating the audible sound on the face of 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.520 the speaker as a traditional speaker would, where the speaker 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.120 is moving, a diaphragm in and out, and pushing air 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:39.080 around the ultrasonic emitter creates a column of the air 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.680 itself to act like a speaker, which is pretty nifty. 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:48.720 I'm sorry, I meant spooky number nine. DNA hacking. So 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:52.240 back in two thousand and three, scientists finished mapping out 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:56.200 the human genome. But that was obviously just the beginning. 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:56.720 That's just. 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:03.640 A long list of base pairs. Next came the work 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:08.159 to examine the genome closely and determine which base pairs. 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.400 In the more than three billion. 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.400 Pairs that make up the human genome are responsible for 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:20.000 different stuff like our possibility of developing a disease, for example, 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.720 Because if you could determine that, and if you could 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.720 determine a way of changing that part of the DNA 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:31.320 so that it's eliminated, maybe you could make someone not 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.440 develop that disease. You could potentially wipe out certain diseases. 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.720 And beyond that, what about hacking the human genome so 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.720 that we can create designer human beings, human beings who 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.600 have traits that we considered to be superior. Now that's 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:51.200 the stuff of lots of science fiction and horror cautionary tales. 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:55.200 Stuff like Gatica saying yeah, but who gets to decide 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.560 what is superior and what happens to people who aren't 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.880 able to take advantage of that technology, and what happens 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.280 to the people who do take advantage of that technology. 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.960 There are a lot of ethical questions around it. However, 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.960 beyond that, there are other scary things to consider. DNA 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:16.840 hacking could allow for individually focused biological warfare. So imagine 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.920 that you're living in a world and someone can get 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.920 access to your DNA. Maybe they get a skin sample 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.320 or some hair or something. They're able to get something 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.840 from you that has traces of your DNA in it, 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.280 and they're able to analyze your DNA and see what 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:35.480 makes you you and look for any vulnerabilities. Maybe they 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.080 find out that you have a predisposed weakness to a 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:41.880 particular type of virus, and then they engineer a virus 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:45.040 to attack you specifically. That was actually the premise of 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.319 a twenty twelve article in the Atlantic, and that article 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.560 hypothesized a future in which the president of the United 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.560 States could be targeted and assassinated through the use of 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.920 a particularly nasty virus that was tailor made for the president. 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:02.439 Yikes or imagine more than that, maybe a widespread plague. 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.480 Les Stephen King's the stand engineered through a deep understanding 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:10.960 of DNA paired with a really crappy containment strategy. So 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.000 how realistic is all of that, Well, in a short term, 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:18.760 it's probably not terribly realistic. It's certainly pausible, but not 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:23.200 necessarily plausible. But it does require a deep understanding of 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.079 DNA and a means to manipulate it easily in order 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.240 to pay it off. We've seen some advances in those areas. 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.760 There are a lot more ways that we can manipulate 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.400 DNA than there used to be, but it's not exactly 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:39.240 easy to do. It's easy, yer, but that's a matter 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.280 of degrees. However, you can make a convincing argument that 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:46.000 it would not require too deep and understanding to cause 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:50.120 real harm unintentionally, and that would be a very difficult 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.480 argument to counter. And while DNA hacking could produce all 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:57.760 sorts of different futuristic results, we do already have a 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:02.360 culture of biohackers also sometimes known as grinders, who have 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.480 taken body alteration to new places. These folks are not 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.959 working on a DNA level. They're not changing themselves fundamentally 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:15.280 in that way. Instead they're doing alterations, you know, upgrades. 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.920 So one example would be there are people who have 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.720 chosen to have small magnets implanted under the skin of 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:28.480 their fingertips. So these little nubby magnets sticking out on 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.920 their fingertips. It's kind of weird, right, Well, what's the 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.760 purpose of that. Well, because of the effects of magnetism 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.160 and electromagnetism, they would actually be able to sense when 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.560 they were near magnetic or electromagnetic fields. So it'd be 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:44.720 kind of like Spider Man's spidy sense. They'd feel tugging 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.199 on their fingertips as they pass through it. So instead 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.600 of detecting danger like Spider Man would, you'd be able 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.520 to tell like whether or not electricity was flowing through 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.160 a conductor, for example, because you could bring your fingers 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.719 close to that conductor. Maybe it's some wires. You bring 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.280 a thing close and if you start feeling the pulses 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:09.000 from an alternating magnetic field, a fluctuating magnetic field, that 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.920 would tell you, oh, electricity, alternating current is flowing through here, 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.640 because I can feel it in my fingertips. That would 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:16.800 be something you normally would not be able to feel 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.800 so you kind of have a sixth sense due to 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.440 having these magnets implanted in your fingertips. And people have 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:26.080 actually done this. However, a word of caution. From what 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:31.040 I understand, these operations are pretty painful. They usually are 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:36.760 not done with anesthetic. There's not really a place you 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:42.079 can go that's medically licensed to do this because it's 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.040 not a standard medical procedure. As far as I know, 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.440 there are no accredited medical facilities that do it. I 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.200 think any doctor who did practice this would have the 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:57.680 danger of being barred from practice. So you're usually talking 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.679 about entrepreneuring body modify cation specialists, you know, like piercers, 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.040 who will do this kind of operation. And anytime you're 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.360 talking about introducing something foreign to the body, you're also 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.240 raising other risks like infection, so you've got to be 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.560 super duper careful about that kind of thing. In other words, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.080 you're not gonna find me putting magnets under my fingertips 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:25.640 anytime soon. Number eight on the list cyber war who boy. 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:27.880 Well. 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.400 The scenario of the article specifically lays out is an 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:35.800 all out cyber warfare attack where one nation targets another 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:40.400 nation's infrastructure, like its power grid system or water system, 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.839 and sure enough, the US Department of Homeland Security has 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.000 reported that there's lots of evidence to show that various 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:51.640 hackers have infiltrated critical infrastructure with such tactics like Russian 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:56.000 hackers and the things like power plants and gas pipelines, 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.360 and that's terrifying. And before that report had even made 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.960 the news, that was in twenty eighteen, security experts have 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.520 for years been warning that Chinese hackers have been infiltrating 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.400 American infrastructure. CNN reported on that back in twenty fourteen. 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.320 So this is not exactly a new story. It's a 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:19.000 continuing story that continues to be really problematic and concerning. 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.480 So the infiltration part is a reality. We know for 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:27.160 a fact hackers from other countries have infiltrated various systems. 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:31.120 There have been traces found of their activities, so we 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.880 know that there have at least been people snooping around 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.120 our systems. Whether or not they've installed anything to help 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.400 shut stuff down as another matter, but they've definitely been there, 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:43.920 and they appear to have been there from places like 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:48.640 Russia and China. That does not automatically mean that the 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:52.080 infiltration was state directed. In other words that it was 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:57.320 a government backed project, but that seems to be The 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:01.960 general consensus is that these were lifely the activities of 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:06.600 a state back group of hackers. What about shutting everything down? 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.199 Is that realistic? Well, it could be more challenging to do, 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:15.160 but not necessarily impossible. Many utilities have started installing self 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:19.160 healing systems. A self healing system isn't quite as cool 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:21.560 as it sounds like. It's not like it's Wolverine in 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.160 infrastructure form, but it does involve having a system that 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:32.120 when it detects problems automatically tries to reroute services to 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.200 get around those problems. So with a power grid, it 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.560 might be if a smart power grid system detects that 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:40.840 there's a short for some reason, or there's a break 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:43.880 in connectivity at some point, it may try to reroute 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.120 power to work around that as much as possible. That 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.760 could help confound a cyber warfare attack a little bit. 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:54.160 At least it might mitigate the impact of an attack, 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:59.280 though preventing one entirely maybe not. But then there are 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.560 also attacks on other systems, not just power grids and 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.720 water and gas, which are all scary enough. But there's 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.720 the evidence that showed Russian hackers were targeting election systems 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:12.280 in the United States leading up to the twenty sixteen elections. 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:14.560 I talked about this in a recent episode of Tech Stuff, 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:16.280 so I'm not going to go all the way through 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.200 it again. But the really insidious thing about those attacks 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:21.800 is they don't even have to be super successful to 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.840 be effective. If you can so doubt in the minds 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.520 of a nation's citizens as to the validity of any 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.680 given election, you have undermined the very foundation of that 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:35.680 nation's government. A government that doesn't have the confidence of 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:39.640 its population is on shaky ground and has to move 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.080 more and more towards totalitarianism in order to maintain power. 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.840 If you don't have any confidence that your system works, 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.560 then you don't have any confidence in your government at all. 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.440 So cyber war is something that is continuing right now. 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.880 It is actually happening. It is already in place. And 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.560 obviously I've given examples of how the US has been 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.080 the target of cyber warfare, but don't forget the US 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.640 has engaged in it too. We're not, you know, the 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.400 United States has not been just the poor victim in 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.520 all these cases. The United States has certainly played a 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:18.600 hand in cyber warfare activities. One example would be Stuck's Net, 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.800 the computer virus that was designed to sabotage uranium enrichment 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.840 facilities in Iran. So this is not something that everyone 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.120 else is doing and the United States is the victim. 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.200 This is something that everyone is doing as much as 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.880 they can and stepping it up as much as they can. Well, 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:37.400 we have a lot more scary technology to talk about, 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.920 but I need to have a sip of tea to 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.280 comfort myself, so let's take a quick break to thank 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:55.320 our sponsor. Number seven is the technological singularity. Now, out 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.400 of all the science fiction ideas I find particularly interesting, 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.920 this one ranks near the top of them. The singularity 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.959 refers to a general concept that could be brought about 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.760 in several different ways, but from a very high level, 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.480 the idea goes something like this. Imagine that technology has 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.720 advanced to the point that the newest stuff coming out 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:20.040 is already designing the next generation of stuff. And imagine 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.120 that the gaps between these generations are getting smaller and smaller, 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.919 and eventually you reach a point where the present is 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.800 defined by constant change, and that's the only way you 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.840 can define it, because things change so quickly. It is 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.399 almost impossible to describe the present in any coherent way. 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.240 That's how quickly everything is evolving. The thing that would 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:45.080 fuel this would be the emergence of superhuman intelligence in 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:50.199 most of the scenarios that involve the technological singularity. However, 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:56.880 that would not necessarily require just a computer AI. That's 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:01.000 one possible version is pure artificial intelligen that has superhuman 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:05.160 capabilities in processing information. This is your basic deep thought 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.359 from Hitchicker's Guide to the Galaxy or Skynet from the 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:12.080 Terminator that scenario. This would be a scenario in which 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:15.080 we humans have created an AI so powerful we are 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:17.960 unable to control it, and then it goes on to 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:20.800 redefine our world in ways that we could not anticipate 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:23.600 because we cannot operate on the same level as this 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.600 superhuman intelligence. But that is not necessarily the only pathway 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.880 to the technological singularity. Another way might be that humans 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.880 find a way to boost our own intelligence, and thus 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:38.399 we evolve beyond what we traditionally think of as being human. 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:41.560 We might do this through a deeper understanding of biology. 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.560 We could boost our intelligence that way, going back to 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.040 the concept of DNA hacking and things related to that, 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.439 or it might involve using technology to create cyborg like 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.919 beings where we merge with technology on some level and 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.400 with tech and biology working together, we boost our intelligence 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.639 to new level and achieve superhuman intelligence that way. So 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:07.320 bottom line, is this a possibility, Well, it beats me. 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:09.640 But there are a lot of super smart people who 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.359 are on either side of this issue. So some people 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:16.639 say the singularity is essentially a foregone conclusion. It will happen, 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.719 The only question is when will it happen. But there 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.679 are other people who say there might be some fundamental 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.760 barriers that were not likely to get over, and those 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:30.800 barriers will block the singularity from ever happening. One of 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:37.199 the frequent criticisms of various singularity scenarios is that a 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:39.959 lot of it rests on the belief that we're going 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.840 to see progress continue on a pace that's similar to 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:48.280 what Moore's law has observed with computer processing power, and 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.720 the thing is that pace may not be realistic or sustainable, 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:56.080 or even applicable to some technologies. So Moore's law applies 0:19:56.200 --> 0:20:01.119 to the processing power of computers generally speaking, but it 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.520 may not apply to other elements that would be necessary 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.800 to bring about superhuman intelligence, because processing power by itself 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.040 is not intelligence. You also have to have the software side. 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:12.560 You've got a lot of other pieces that have to 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.320 be in place. However, if it is possible, it could 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.080 very well mean the end of the human race as 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:22.680 we know it today. Now that doesn't necessarily mean it's 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.040 the end of humanity entirely. It just may mean that 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.800 humanity will transition into something different, So it could be 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.800 a new beginning. It's not necessarily the end of everything, 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:41.919 but still spooky. Number six Google Glass, I mean that 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:46.959 was the number on the article Google. You remember Google Glass, 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.360 the augmented reality glasses. Back when Chris and Dave were 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.080 working on this article, Google glass was still a real thing. 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.400 It was poised to become an actual consumer product outside 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.280 of the relative small sample of bleeding edge adopters aka 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.320 glass holes. We were sometimes called that because I was 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.520 one of them. I had a pair of Google Glass. 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:14.320 The glasses were part augmented reality headset, part user interface 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.280 for the world around you. They included a camera which 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:19.840 could pull in information, and a bluetooth chips so the 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.600 glasses could communicate with a paired mobile device, and through 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.080 that mobile device, the glasses could also pair information like 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:31.280 GPS coordinates, So these glasses, while giving you potentially incredible 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.480 access to information about the world around you, could also 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.560 gather information about the world around you for the benefit 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:41.800 of Google. And suddenly this company could potentially access information 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.800 from cameras mounted on faces all over the world. And 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:48.680 the glasses also had microphones, because you know, you could 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.520 use voice commands to make your glasses do stuff. But 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.480 that also meant that in theory, Google could listen in 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:58.360 as well, not just see everything, but hear everything, which 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:01.160 raises some big privacy concer not just for the people 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:04.960 wearing the glasses, but for everyone around those people. And 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.520 Google makes money with information, so you would effectively be 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.040 generating product for Google to sell by wearing a pair 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:14.879 of those glasses and walking around everywhere. Google would be 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:18.400 the head of a big surveillance state, far more invasive 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:22.720 than a network of closed circuit cameras if such technology 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:27.400 was used unethically. And while Google Glass is now far 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:30.160 more limited in its rollout, you know you only see 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.840 it in a few industries. At this point, the company 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:36.120 Google is still very much in the business of knowing 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:40.160 where its customers are. In August twenty eighteen, numerous tech 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:43.439 journals reported on a study that was conducted by Douglas C. 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:47.560 Schmidt of Venderbilt University that say said that a stationary 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.560 Android phone running Chrome in the background would ping Google 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.800 servers with location data three hundred and forty times in 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.399 a twenty four hour period. Even if you turn the 0:22:57.440 --> 0:23:00.639 location history feature off of the phone, the phones were 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:04.439 still sending location data back to Google, according to the study. Google, 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:06.600 by the way, has disputed the findings of this study. 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.879 Then there are the numerous personal assistant devices that are 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:14.680 out there, including Google Home, that also are always listening 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:17.480 for commands. And of course that's just Google. There are 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.520 other companies out there, like Apple and Amazon that also 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:23.919 have technologies similar to these. All of these could be 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:27.679 monitoring users and sending data back so that the companies 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:31.520 might later exploit that information for profit, usually to sell 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:34.240 you stuff to advertise directly to you. But that's still 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:37.639 pretty creepy, right. Even if the companies are not actively 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:41.639 exploiting that information, the fact that the data could be 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:45.199 transmitted and recorded at all is problematic, though again I 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:48.000 should say the companies generally say they do not record 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:50.880 user data in that way. So whew, that's a relief, right. 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:56.480 Number five drones. Drones are legit creepy. Many drones have 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:01.280 cameras mounted on them. That does allow potential filmmakers unprecedented 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:04.840 access and capabilities. Now, a low budget film can have 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:08.679 the equivalent of an expensive crane shot. It's a fraction 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:11.359 of what it would cost to rent and operate a 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:14.760 film crane with all the associated personnel, the safety features, 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:17.479 all that kind of stuff. You could reduce all that 0:24:17.600 --> 0:24:20.320 down to an operator and a drone and it would 0:24:20.320 --> 0:24:22.440 be much less expensive. But it also means a drone 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:26.000 operator who's using one of these devices could use it 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:29.840 to do stuff like peeping, super darn creepy, to be 0:24:29.920 --> 0:24:34.120 spying on neighbors and stuff. That's just the consumer technology 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:39.000 version of drones that is already troubling. But then you 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:42.640 have to remember there's also tons of military grade drones 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:45.960 and they're being used to do everything from surveillance work 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:51.679 to active strikes on military targets. Weaponized drones, these drones 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:54.560 may be semi autonomous or completely under the control of 0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:58.560 an operator who's potentially hundreds of miles away. They greatly 0:24:58.640 --> 0:25:03.160 extend the surveillance case abilities of various government agencies and divisions, 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:06.600 from military to law enforcement. In the United States, Congress 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:09.960