Lets Talk about The Future

So a bit of time has gone by since my last post and robots have not yet taken over the planet ... but not to fear, other things have changed both personally and globally. Only 4 months to go before I will be officially retired. Yikes!

For lack of something concrete to dedicate my new life to, I will try to write in here on a regular basis whether anybody reads it or not. The subject matter may ramble for a bit until I get into a routine both mentally and physically ... but it will mostly be about the future and how technology could save the day.

What Day are we Trying to Save?

It's Sept 2019 as I write this from the west coast of the USA. 

• Democracy in America (and most of the globe for that matter) is in gridlock.
• Social Media has made the world a bit crazy and it's directors have made us nervous with their concepts on ethical business practice. Apparently we are their human data for sale to the highest bidder. 
• The US President has acted like the proverbial bull in a china shop for the last 3 years and for at least some of us, destroyed our trust in the ability of our system to deliver policies based on ethics and common decency.
• Global relations are strained in many ways including trade, religion, ideals and conflict. Alliances are re-aligning and what they call populist politics is rising in popularity ... or at least it appears that way. 
• Trust in communication via the media has been shaken, somewhat driven by what is now referred to as "fake news" which has cropped up on social media and to some extent mainstream media. 

Can Technology and / or AI be Harnessed to Police our Networks?

There are many skeptics out there that will say no to this and I must confess that my doubts have been raised over the last few years after seeing what has happened to our digital environment at the hands of hackers and data harvesters like facebook. So perhaps the first thing we need to do is to harness our technology and turn it onto itself in order to wipe out some of these dangers.

• Would it be possible to develop an AI system to scrape universal networks and destroy malevolent code wherever it is found including when it is released by hackers? It would need to be able to not only recognize known threats but also to foresee and destroy new threats as they are released. Here is an interesting article about this possibility and perhaps one of you out there can comment on it as well:
  https://www.scienceandtechnologyresearchnews.com/training-ai-to-police-future-networks/
  
• Can a better business model be devised for social media whereby the good side (healthy communication and co-operation) is preserved without the downside of bad actors being allowed to survive. I think this one would require government intervention and regulation and the goal of infinite profit by selling user data would be banned. Advertising has worked for decades without being malicious so there is hope for this ... or how about paying for your social media instead of having advertising at all. Here is an article about some possibilities:
  https://www.vox.com/conversations/2018/3/27/17168790/ello-facebook-alternative-data-privacy-cambridge-analytica-deletefacebook
  So far though I don't think this model is working because we are just too enamored with the thought of everything free on the internet.
  
• And what about politics and government ... can technology fix that mess? Maybe so but only if we can elect some people with vision and so far I don't see much of that happening at least in this country. Let me just write down some thoughts for discussion and perhaps you can comment on the pros and cons of these points:
  
• Limit the length of time for campaigning to a few months
• Take money out of the process by giving each candidate a blog whereby he/she can talk to the public and express platforms and ideas. Otherwise communication is by unpaid news reports only ... no TV ads or fundraisers ... no more lobbyists or super pacs either.
• No more primaries. Each party selects their presidential candidate at a convention by majority vote
• All positions are limited to a time period (4-6 years) after which a second term may be attempted but only two terms are allowed.
• Elections could be done via the internet over a period of a week or so and only registered voters would have the ability to log in and vote (need the AI police mentioned above to stop fraud and hacking).

Well that's a start anyway. More later. Comments welcome here and I will try to respond to all of them.