An Era of Pervasive Technology
An Era of Pervasive Technology
  • Reporter Kim San
  • 승인 2023.04.17 19:18
  • 댓글 0
이 기사를 공유합니다

▲An illustration of Orwellian Dystopia / Financial Times
▲An illustration of Orwellian Dystopia / Financial Times

 The concept of privacy is often brought up in public discussions and its importance cannot be overstated. It is also a concept highly vague and abstract in nature, such that, if one is asked to elaborate on the reasons why it is important, they often fail to provide any profound explanation. Indeed, privacy is important because every individual is an agent of free will – this should be respected at all costs. This alone, however, seems to be a weak justification for the great levels of emphasis put on it. 
 The principle of separation of powers is often associated with the political philosopher Montesquieu, who argued that, in order to prevent tyranny and promote liberty, power must be separated and balanced between different branches of government. This principle aims to create a system of checks and balances, in which each branch is able to limit the power of the others and ensure that no single branch becomes too dominant. The principle of privacy is therefore the individuals’ collective act to distribute the power of authorities and prevent the realization of Orwellian dystopia. Since the 9/11 terror attack, however, there has been a massive expansion of executive power, giving authorities the legal grounds to collect and analyze data on untargeted civilians at an unprecedented scale. “The most potent weapon in preventing terrorist attacks is intelligence,” says George Terwilliger, former Deputy Attorney General under the Bush administration. This begs the question, though: if the Government is protecting us from terror attacks, who is protecting us from the Government?
 When a pedestrian is crossing a street, an incoming vehicle must yield way until the pedestrian is safely on the other side of the road. This is not only legally justified but also an act of respect and nobility. When there is an evident asymmetry of power between parties, one that holds the high ground should ethnically make the sacrifice. More often than not, of course, this does not happen naturally unless otherwise enforced. When the technology becomes so powerful to an extent that it is intrusive, there exists a massive asymmetry of power between an individual user and the big-tech companies. Often, social media users are inundated by the endless streams of content only to realize a few hours flew by. They would naively put the blame on themselves for this irresponsible scrolling when, in reality, they have been fighting on a tilted playing field. When they are gobbling contents provided by the “algorithm”, a supercomputer is at the other end doing all sorts of calculations to keep them engaged for as long as possible. It is as if a human is competing against an AI in a game of chess where the AI has the ability to calculate all the moves in advance. This is an impossible game to win for a human.
 Collecting any kind of information at a large scale inevitably creates an asymmetry of power. This goes for individual to individual, individual to a company, individual to government, and government to government. In the era of surveillance capitalism, being in a state of absolute privacy seems out of reality. Almost everyone has an extremely elaborate surveillance device in their pockets; government agencies have spy satellites holding a silent vigil from above or at times the alleged “weather balloon”. With every credit card swipe, movement, like, comment, and post potentially collected and analyzed for profiling, the world already seems to have turned into an Orwellian dystopia. Instead of turning to defeatism, though, there are numerous legislative movements to enhance the protection of personal data. The European Union has the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which empowers individuals to take more control over where and how their personal data is used. And Korea has the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) that enforces an organization to obtain the individual’s explicit consent for handling personal data. With these two adversarial movements – those trying to protect and those trying to undermine – “the big question we’re going to face over the next few years is: How do we recalibrate,” says Scott Anderson, senior editor of Lawfare who served in the State Department under the Obama Administration. Despite all the strong and aggressive safeguards in place, at the end of the day, an individual is the last line of defense with the utmost responsibility to protect themselves in the wild.

▲Tristan Harris on asymmetry of power in front of the US congress / Center for Humane Technology
▲Tristan Harris on asymmetry of power in front of the US congress / Center for Humane Technology