The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Knowing what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is important, but it doesn't add to what someones digital rights are. In a world where many people have online identities and an online presence, we need to figure out what it means to be a digital citizen, not only what our human rights are. Learning these human rights is the proper step in determining what our digital rights are.

We can take many points made in the Universal Declaration and apply them to the digital world. Here is a list of a few I would like to discuss.

Article 5.
"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Article 19.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

Article 27.
"(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."

Article 5 is important to understand in a digital perspective because often times online people are treating others in cruel and inhumane ways. Trolling is a perfect example of how cruel people can be to others, much like the story told in class about the blogger who's offender made a fake twitter account as if it was her dead father. People online are horrible to others simply because they need to fill a void in their lives and because they do not realize that an actual person is on the other side of the screen. By more people realizing this horrible phenomenon of cruel behavior online and taking action to change this, the digital world will be one step closer to creating a more kind environment.

Article 19 discusses the freedom of opinion and expression, which is not only important in our human lives but our digital lives as well. We should be allowed to express ourselves online in any way, shape, or form. If the digital world had only one sided views, people would not understand the vast amount of perspectives on many different topics. Keeping freedom of opinions and expressions online create a more diverse digital society with many different views to consider.

Article 27 takes into consideration the many different opportunities that everyone should be involved with. In a new digital age, this is more prevalent than ever before. There is a vast amount of information online and different groups that people can become apart of. Allowing people do join whatever community, enjoy arts, and share scientific advancements and its benefits online creates a more informed society and enhances the possibilities of learning and creating new things every day.

Source: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Digital Inequality in Chinatown

Seeing the perspective of someone who doesn't constantly have digital information in their lives apposed to us who live off of our phones and have instant access whenever we need it was surprisingly refreshing to read. Although I was aware that many people do not have access to the internet or know how to use technology, I never really thought too much about it or looked into it. Finding out that "only about 56 percent of Chinatown residents report having Internet access at home, compared with a city average of around 88 percent" was quite shocking (Hong). San Fransisco is a very technology based city, so to see a group of people there that do not have access to internet seems so unlikely, but it is happening. 

Going to a library to use the internet seems like an outdated thing to do. I remember when I was younger I would go to the library to use the internet at times, but that wasn't the only way of accessing the internet for myself. The other 44% of people that only access the internet this way are left out from many things today. Some of them only know how to look at a few news articles and email with the help of a librarian. These types of people are not in the loop with what people are doing today because of this. Most jobs and other things require internet to do their work in some way, shape, or form and these people are unable to excel in these areas. Even the simple thing of "googling" something on the spot is unavailable to many people in Chinatown. 

We are constantly learning new things and progressing with technology but without the internet, you can't continually do this to the fullest. Recently I found out that a friend of mine, Joey, who had downgraded their iPhone to a "dumb phone" that only had calling and texting. I was surprised that anybody in 2016 would actually do this because of how attached we are to technology and phones. Joey is the opposite of these people in Chinatown. He has given up his instant access to internet and only uses it in his home but he is still apart of the 56% of people who have this access at home. 

Overall, people in Chinatown have a large digital inequality to most people in todays society.

Source: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6196/5187

Hiring A Hacker

Did you know you can hire someone to hack something for you? Sounds pretty sweet if you ask me. I had no idea that hackerslist.com was a thing, and it seems very interesting. For those of you who do not know of this site, it is basically a freelance website for hacking projects. If there is something you need hacked, post on the site and a hacker will respond and do the job for a price. This can benefit many people who are trying to do simple things such as downloading all of their emails but not knowing how to in the quickest way possible.

Most of the time when you hear the word "hacker" it is linked to a negative connotation. This article points out that not all hacking is a bad thing. King explains that "Historically, a hacker is a technologist who has a particular sort of adventuresome and enthusiastic orientation to the creation and improvement of technology." These hackers are on a mission to find a new a better way to use technology in a constructive way. On the other hand, there are disruptive hackers who, like the Target data breach incident, are hacking to make money momentarily and only benefit themselves while hurting many others in the process.

Technology is definitely a factor into why hackers are motivated to do what they do. King explains an example of an iPhone that does not have the right language software available, so hackers hack the phone to allow for the language of their choice. He also brings up jailbreaking an iPhone, which was the exact example I was thinking of when reading the topic of technology motivating hacking. People jailbreak their iPhones and iPods to make it more customizable. The hacking alters the technology to not necessarily make it better, but to make it fit to their liking.

Overall, I'm open to hacking technology as long as it is constructive and not destructive.









Source: http://digitalethics.org/essays/good-reasons-hire-hacker/

LOLing at tragedy

Internet trolls are a strange thing that has come to life with the different social platforms. I think the first time I realized trolls were a thing was on YouTube. It's really weird and also interesting at the same time that there becomes a community of these trolls that will say anything opposite of the general opinion to get a reaction or to piss people off. It's also hard to not give into the trolls when they are trolling. I often find myself reading comments on YouTube and become extremely offended and want to defend the person's video or point of view that I know is correct. This is exactly what the trolls want and it is too easy for them to get those angry reactions.

Previously to reading this article I had no ida that RIP trolling was a thing. I also was unaware that there were trolls that continually created the same identity, and befriended other trolls. This is a horrible phenomenon that shouldn't be happening. I understand that people troll and it is inevitable, but for a community of trolls to spend their time and energy posting horrible things to these Facebook pages is going too far. They most definitely are crossing the line by making separate Facebook pages just to make fun of the person's RIP page. The fact that these trolls are posting dead baby pictures on a recently deceits children's RIP pages is disturbing as well.

I don't think that there is a good way of controlling these trolls or even to get rid of them, but I do think that there is a way to have trolling not impact people as much. For this to happen, we need to recognize that people are trolls. If we see a comment that is extremely offending or just plain horrible, report it, move on, or even comment, "don't feed the trolls." If more people aren't reacting to these trolls, trolls won't have any motive to keep posting on pages like these. Obviously trolls aren't going away but we can help prevent the spread of the trolling on Facebook pages and other social mediums.

Source: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3168/3115

The Doomsday Invention

Bostrom brings a lot of very solid points about artificial intelligence in this article that I hadn't thought about before. The example he used in the video demonstration about if we will engineer our own extinction with the white balls was so simple yet got his point across perfectly. We have been inventing these things like nuclear weapons and robots and so far nothing extremely bad has happened to kill off human civilization, but what happens when we do take out this so called black ball and invent something that destroys us all? It seems like robots are the next step for this possibility happening. People want to create these robots that are just like humans,  but why? Like I discussed in my last blog post I am not in favor of this. Yes create robots that are useful for efficiency and precise work but do not create them to be like us.

A quote that scares me is, "In the history of computer science, no programmer has created code that can substantially improve itself." Since this hasn't happened before, we are unsure of the consequences that go along with this. I believe that once this happens A.I. will be smarter than humans and pretty much take over the world. 

Another quote that scared me is, “The brain of the village idiot and the brain of a scientific genius are almost identical. So we might very well see relatively slow and incremental progress that doesn’t really raise any alarm bells until we are just one step away from something that is radically super intelligent.” We keep inventing new A.I. and advance more and more into creating human like robots, but once we reach a point where these robots are extremely intelligent we might have gone too far and will not be able to un-invent these things.

It is strange because I recently saw a commercial for a self driving car and I am so apposed to the idea yet my roommate said to me, "That is the future. Someday that's all people will have and nobody will be driving." This scared me because people are willingly allowing robots be responsible for our safety. 

By the looks of it, these things are not going away and scientists are brushing aside the ethical dilemmas and possibilities of horrible outcomes. “There is just more to be said about the risk—and maybe more use in describing the pitfalls, so we know how to steer around them—than spending time now figuring out the details of how we are going to furnish the great palace a thousand years from now.” Instead of figuring out the downfalls of these artificial intelligences, scientists are figuring ways around them in order to create a more intelligent robot. At some point there needs to be a line to be drawn, and it seems like as of now, we may be crossing it.

Source: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/doomsday-invention-artificial-intelligence-nick-bostrom

The Big Robot Questions

For all the great things that Robots are doing for us, it seems as if there are much more downsides than upsides.

First off, I most definitely DO NOT want a robot to be like a human. It is unnecessary and highly likely of leading to horrible things. Why do people want robots to be exactly like us? Isn't being human something special that no other type of thing could be? What happens when robots are so much like us, that they think they are us, or even worse, better than us? We can go to the example of the lovely Disney Channel Original Movie Smart House. If you don't know what it is i'll give you a quick breakdown. A kid wins a smart house for his family because he is too busy taking care of everyone else. The house acts as a mother named Pat and eventually controls everything and locks them inside the house. Sounds like a nightmare right? So this robot mother thinks she knows best for the humans and controls everything in their lives. This was made in 1999 but it seems like they were onto something.. With the technology now a days this is highly likely of turning into reality. I want nothing to do with it.

Once these robots reach a level of human behaviors the world will be a worse off place. Now we have to consider, since they are like us, are they humans? Should they have rights? Are they going to take over the world like iRobot? I believe they are NOT humans. Humans created them, and they can be turned off with a switch (hopefully). They shouldn't have any rights considering they aren't human! If we give them rights and humanity, they are likely of doing bad things. They need to be programmed to know right from wrong, but they will never have instincts or a gut feeling about a situation. They will only know what is programmed for them to do. Even if they are programmed to make judgements, there is always the possibility of malfunctions and wrong decisions. These robots should never be allowed outside of whatever environment they are being tested, and if they are in people's homes, they need to be highly regulated.

On the other hand, I do not mind the robots that are made for helping with completing tasks. These are the type of robots we should be using to create a faster and more efficient way of completing tasks. Although many people may be losing jobs, I believe it is beneficial from a business standpoint. If you had the opportunity to pay less money and get the job done faster, would you do it? I know I would. People will still need to be around to supervise or control and fix these robots, but for the most part, efficiency is key to success.

Overall, robots that are like humans should never be a thing. I know it is inevitable and it will and/or has already happened, but I want out of it. There are way too many ethical issues with human robots that would need to be dealt with and I for one am not taking part in it. The day we are able to put an artificial brain into our heads to stay alive is the day we are going to be in a whole lot of trouble.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/02/drones_in_home_robots_and_military_machines_pose_several_questions_.html

The Most Ethical Way to Stream Music: Not At All

The article for today was very interesting and had a lot of good insights on streaming music. I have been more open to buying artists music than streaming it lately because I actually put in thought on how much work they must have gone through to get the work done in a professional manner. Most people enjoy music and listen to it daily, so shouldn't we be purchasing that music? It is like any other product except it pleases our ears for hours. How cool is that? 

I remember when Limewire first came out (like napster). That was a game changer. At that point I hadn't purchased or thought of purchasing music because I figured I could find everything online. When Limewire was shut down it was bittersweet, but for the better. Clearly there had to be some other way of getting "free" music and that's' where streaming sites came in.

Seeing the figures for how little artists make when people stream their music on places like Spotify and Pandora was really shocking. I assumed they didn't make as much as they would selling their music but I had no clue it was that low. Spotify and Pandora rely on different artists and musicians to use their music, so why are they completely ripping off the artist? Clearly something isn't correct here. I most definitely will not be using Spotify and Pandora anymore, considering I wasn't a huge fan of it before. 

I also found it extremely surprising that Xbox music was one of the most ethical ways of streaming music. It's a shame that not as many people are using Xbox music as there are Spotify users. I myself rarely use Xbox music, but may have to try it out again.

Source: http://digitalethics.org/essays/ethical-way-stream-music/