Our Perilous New World

Let's just give a little bit of thought to the perilous new world that we are creating. This isn't about global warming and the depletion of groundwater reservoirs, we know about that already. This is about technology.

There are cameras watching us everywhere, both when we are walking and when we are driving. Cameras that are close enough can use facial recognition to identify us. Those that aren't can recognize us by the way we walk. Aside from mounted cameras there are people wearing smart glasses. Biometric data is being collected everywhere and is gradually replacing traditional identification like passports.

We already know that our phones know everything about who we are, what we do and, where we go. Apps that involve driving can now tell if the user is a good driver or if the phone is being taken out of the phone holder while driving.

Automatic license plate readers, both stationary along roads and mounted on vehicles, are recording everywhere that we go and where the car has been parked. The cameras can take an image of the car if it didn't get a chance to read the license plate. No two used cars are exactly alike and any ideosyncracies can be used to identify the car anywhere. The cameras can tell if the driver is intoxicated and whether they are using the phone or not wearing their seatbelt.

Cars are also watching us from the inside, although this doesn't get a lot of attention. Using GPS, your car is watching everywhere that you go. Of course it knows whether you are a good driver and might be recording audio and video inside the car. Your car knows if you are doing proper maintenance on it. Cars have many computer modules and this shouldn't come as a surprise.

The really important new development in surveillance is AI. The vast amount of data that is being collected would otherwise not be of much use unless we knew exactly what we were looking for. It would require millions of people to go over all of that data. But AI changes everything because it can quickly do the work of those millions of people. AI can scan all of the data that is collected and flag anything that looks out of the ordinary. This makes surveillance many times more powerful than it would be without AI. We could say that electronic surveillance before AI was "reactive" but now it is "proactive".

With the new virtually cashless and paperless society, most of what we do and where we go is somehow visible online. Before the widespread use of AI, that wouldn't matter much for the average person because there wasn't enough people to go over the vast amount of data that was being collected. The data was valuable only as metadata, or if we knew exactly what we were looking for. AI has changed that in that it can quickly do the data analysis of millions of people.

AI has brought scams to an entirely new level. A person's voice can be easily cloned by AI. A family can be called and it will make the caller sound like a cloned family member's voice. Fake people can be created by AI, and then apply for loans, credit and, financial aid.

That's a summary of the perilous new world at the personal level. Now let's go to the global level.

Social media has made it easy to commit sabotage or espionage in another country. No longer is it necessary to train and send secret agents. Now it is easy to recruit local people online, usually using money or ideology or simply the promise of status.

Cameras are a tool not only for internal surveillance but also for external attack. Since there are cameras everywhere, a nation's own cameras can be hacked and used against it. This tactic was reportedly used to kill the Supreme Leader of Iran.

The war in the Middle East has brought a new dimension to warfare. What about our electronic devices, such as phones? Who has handled them? Might they suddenly explode?

The new development that gets the most attention is drones. What is so significant about drones is how inexpensive they are. Any nation could easily make or acquire thousands of drones. What is so perilous about drones is that they have made offense much easier and inexpensive than defense. Drones can certainly be shot down with missiles. The trouble is that the drones might cost a few thousand dollars each while the missiles that shoot them down might cost a few million dollars each.

Unlike conventional planes, most drones don't require runways and can be launched from anywhere. Even short-range inexpensive drones can be brought near to the target in a vehicle and then launched. 

A drone attack can be very destructive even if it is not successful. Drones are so inexpensive that, even if they are all shot down, it will cost the defender many times more to shoot them down than the drones cost the attacker. Even without an actual drone attack, the cost of defending potential targets such as oil terminals and planes on the ground would be vastly more than the drones themselves would cost.

A stadium full of people, or any such mass event, would be very vulnerable to a drone attack, especially drones nearby in a truck. Just the threat of an attack could force the cancellation of the event or the spending of an exorbitant amount of money to defend it.

The present wars have shown how a nation's own phone network can be used against it by drones. We have gotten completely dependent on phones and a drone attack would be worth very many times it's cost, besides whatever targets it might hit, if it could force the target nation to shut down it's phone system.

It is bad enough that drones can attack ships from long distance. The world is utterly dependent on imports by ship and, even if the drone attack is not successful, it will dramatically raise insurance rates and make whatever the ship is carrying more expensive. But that is just the beginning. A plane is especially vulnerable to drones while taking off or landing. An inexpensive drone flying into a jet engine would likely cause the plane to crash. Drones could easily force airports to shut down.

The latest development is land robots and vehicles for warfare. Like drones in the air, land robots make offense easier and less expensive relative to defense. Land robots are electrically powered, so that they are not dependent on fuel. They do not require the training of a human crew or sustaining the crew on the battlefield. This makes them much less vulnerable and expensive than traditional military vehicles. A robot vehicle that is partially disabled would likely still be able to continue firing. 

The next development, already underway, is to have drones and vehicles powered by AI so that they can choose their own targets and no potentially detectable and jammable communication with a base will be necessary.