Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Wednesday 13 June 2018
Don't trust the tech giants? You likely rely on them anyway

By ANICK JESDANUN computers seemed
RYAN NAKASHIMA impregnable, even after a
NEW YORK (AP) — If bruising antitrust fight over
technology giants like its Windows monopoly.
Facebook, Google and Then came the iPhone,
Amazon face a common which Microsoft ridiculed
threat to their dominance, — at least until the mobile
it probably lies in a single computing wave it
word: trust. unleashed swamped the
In some respects, these Windows PC.
companies are riding Could a similar shift
high. They have woven today tap into underlying
themselves into the fabric consumer discontent and
of our daily lives, making topple today's tech giants?
their services indispensable Perhaps, although it's not
for daily tasks like keeping clear exactly how.
in touch with family and One possibility could
friends, watching TV and involve blockchain, the
buying cat food. Revenues technology that underlies
are up and profits are bitcoin and similar
soaring. cryptocurrencies. Some
But they've also drawn enthusiasts have begun
the attention of regulators to talk about blockchain-
in Europe and the U.S. In this June 1, 2018, file photo, commuters look at their phones in Los Angeles. based social networks that
thanks to carelessness with Associated Press could operate without
consumer data and other central authorities such as
problems. Facebook's leaky systemic; others may be even though medical errors than half had little or no Facebook, which in theory
data controls, for instance, little more than the growing sometimes kill patients. confidence. Yet a January could also minimize privacy
let Cambridge Analytica pains of new technologies. These services are too survey from Pew found that risks. But that could take
mine the profiles of up to What they all fuel, though, important to live without, 69 percent of U.S. adults use years, if it comes to pass
87 million people in an is a sense that technology despite the occasional social media, unchanged at all. In the meantime,
attempt to swing elections. may not always warrant disastrous error. from 2016. developments in artificial
The social network has also the implicit faith we place But those industries are also Shaky consumer intelligence could make
had to beef up manual in it. heavily regulated because confidence can still limit things even worse on
oversight to clamp down Companies have to realize of the risks involved. the time people spend the trust front. Some
on the spread of fake news. "that trust isn't digital," says Technology companies, on Facebook or curb researchers are using AI
Google's YouTube has Gerd Leonhard, a futurist by comparison, are largely their enthusiasm for new systems to create realistic
likewise been implicated and author of "Technology unconstrained. boundary-pushing services. — but wholly fabricated —
in the spread of political vs. Humanity." ''Trust is Trust issues could be Amazon, for instance, now videos of famous people.
conspiracy theories. Not not something that you especially acute for wants its delivery people In one, former President
long ago, Amazon's always- download. Trust is a feeling. technology companies, to leave packages inside Barack Obama is made to
listening Echo speaker It's a perception." since their services are your home or car. That's not "talk" about a shooting ; in
inadvertently recorded a Trust looms large in effectively omnipresent going to fly if you're worried another, President Donald
family's conversation at modern life. We still get on yet largely inscrutable. about Amazon exploiting Trump gestures in front of a
home — and then sent the airplanes even though they You can't audit Google's its access to your private fake photograph .
recording to someone else. sometimes come apart in algorithm to see why it's spaces. Google recently unveiled a
Some of these issues are flight . We go to hospitals giving you certain search But tech giants have fewer digital voice assistant called
results the way you can worries about consumers Duplex that can sound
watch your bank balance. defecting to their rivals, convincingly human while
You just have to trust that in part because they booking appointments
the company is upholding each do their best to over the phone. Google
its promises. lock users into their array says that bot will identify
Yet so far, such concerns of complementary apps itself as nonhuman when
don't loom large for and services. That doesn't making such calls — but
most consumers. "That stop them from sniping at it's not hard to imagine
trust is eroded, but the one another, of course. robocallers developing
uncomfortable thing is Apple, for instance, has similar, but less scrupulous,
no one really cares," says emphasized its privacy technology.
Scott Galloway, a New protections to highlight its Others are pitting AI
York University marketing differences with Facebook networks against each
professor. "As long as they and Google. But it's also other to hone their
trust that technology will reportedly seeking ways abilities to deceive and
improve their lives, they to expand its ad business, detect deception — for
don't appear to care about which would bring it into the moment, primarily in
the other stuff." more direct competition digital images. Applied
A 2016 survey from the with its two rivals. to other uses, however,
Pew Research Center, for History does offer a this technology could
instance, found that only cautionary tale for tech fundamentally test our
9 percent of users were companies that grow too trust in one another and
"very confident" that social complacent. Roughly a society's institutions, says
media companies could decade ago, Microsoft's Matthew Griffin, a U.K.
protect their data. More dominance in personal consultant and futurist.q