Whack to the future

I have a sneaky feeling that things are going to be worse 100 years from now. It just hit me the other day — thanks to Jaron Lanier’s Who Owns the Future? — that things are getting supremely nontransparent on the technology front. Dig. It’s quite possible that there are computers out there that pick up on comments (on the web) complaining about mosquito bites, and translate them into investments in soothing lotions. In fact, it’s pretty much a sure thing that there are machines out there doing just that sort of thing. (Example not to be taken literally.)

It makes me wonder what aspects of my life are being collated into marketing opportunities, like the web ads that seem to know where I’ve been browsing. (And of course they do know where I’ve been browsing…) I’ve resorted to ad blocking software for those — and now that I’ve said that, someone out there is probably collating that fact into my online profile mix — but I’m worried about the other, more insidious kind of monitoring. It makes me question every coincidence I experience in life.

Lanier predicts there will come a time when our very bodily needs such as thirst will trigger the spontaneous arrival of little thirst-quenching bots or, more horrifyingly, little nano-machines that will get into your body and clean out your coronary arteries while you sit there on a beach. You didn’t even know you were sick!

Sometimes I’m glad I won’t be around for the “advances” yet to come…