Big Data: A Startup Thriller Novel

Afterword

         

Technology builds on technology. Software builds on software. The rate of change has been staggering, and it is only speeding up. We, as human beings, have barely had a moment to catch our collective breath, to take a step back and ask ourselves the big questions.

Questions like: how do we prevent bad people from getting their hands on software that could potentially destroy us?

Atomic bombs are physical things. They need buildings, which can be monitored by satellites. They require highly regulated physical fuel.

The world's next generation of mega-weapons will be software. Code in machines. Machines that drive our cars, fly our planes, control our homes, run our hospitals, and do something new for us every day.

The Matrix was wrong. Computers aren't going to imprison or kill us all on their own. It's not artificial intelligence that we should be afraid of. Machine learning doesn't know or care about what it does. It only does what humans program it to do. Computers lack intention; humans give it to them.

What should frighten us is our own complicity in the thoughtless adoption of new technologies without any set of rules. Culturally, we need to put some serious thought into the roles and responsibilities technology plays in our daily lives. If we leave it completely up to capitalism and the free market, it will often be cheaper to have computers do the work instead of humans. No checks or balances.

This is not a problem for governments to solve. Technology is not bound by physical borders. We can't just hope someone will do the right thing.

It is time that we, as a global human race, invent and adopt systems of technological checks and balances. Software is infinitely easier to infiltrate and steal than atomic bombs. And if we sit back and do nothing—if we just throw our hands up and ignore the problem—we will have to live with the consequences. Or maybe we won't.

The development of the Internet started only fifty short years ago. Not even an average human lifespan. We're still living in the Internet's Wild West. There are no enforced laws. No judges. No police. No independent oversight. Like the American Wild West, the bad guys are getting away with nearly everything. Except this time, the bad guys have bigger guns. And what's at stake is the very survival of the human race.