kitchensongs:

marcopolio:

Did you ever see that movie Minority Report? Well, I haven’t, but it is based on a short story of the same name by the great Philip K. Dick. To put it very briefly, some psychics can predict crimes before they happen, and the police utilize this power and things go awry.

Life imitates art once again thanks to predictive analytics software… I remember reading about this technology in a one paragraph blurb in the local paper here, but was more than surprised to see this commercial on ESPN while at work the other day.

Some police forces are already working with IBM to put this technology into effect. And really, why wouldn’t they? IBM has a great track record when it comes to working with government and law enforcement… er… wait, no, I’m sorry, I forgot all about their strategic alliance with Nazi Germany. You can’t make this stuff up folks. And while the argument could be made that a company has no control over what someone else does with the technology that they produce, I still don’t feel great knowing that IBM is helping police to predict where and when crimes will happen. Pair this up with thought crime (I mean in real life, not 1984, it’s called H.R. 1955, look it up), or an increasingly poor economy (did you know that desperate times often lead people to commit crimes?) or countless other factors that I’m sure you can fill in for yourself, and who is to say who is safe from abuse of this technology?

It’s getting worse everyone, much, much worse. Don’t even get me started on drone planes.

But hey, at least we got this cute commercial out of it all, right?

Reblogging because I’m shocked that a silly picture of myself or cooking tips can get 100+ notes and this gets zero.

4:33 pm  •  11 August 2012  •  5 notes