The smartphone is a creature which seems to be gaining its
own life. Now I must admit I have no smartphone, and I really do not want one. Permit
me to explain why. First, as some may know, I had been the COO of what is now Verizon
Wireless and as such established the current digital network along with
Qualcomm. Prior to that, as a matter of happenstance I inherited the first
international connections of the ARPA Net, now the Internet between Etam WV and
Goonhilly in the UK and Trondheim in Norway. Of course I also was responsible
for expanding broadband Internet to Central and Eastern Europe. However I had
nothing to do with the smartphone, kind of.
But back to the smartphone. As I see it as one not infected
by them, it is a device which is taking over part of humanity. It tells people
what to think, what to do, when to do it. It monitors your health, your heart
rate, blood pressure, blood sugar, and can listen to you 24 by 7, tracks your
location, and can tell you where to go next, what to do there, what to say, how
long to stay etc. It can tell you who to date, who to speak with. You are not
in control, the smartphone and its manipulators are. And these smartphone are
all interconnected, one massive and expanding distributed computer, sharing
information on all the humans they are controlling. You keep the phones
charged, buy new and faster ones, interconnect them on clouds, and follow their
every command.
Smart phones now monitor where you are and then
"suggest" what you should do next. Smartphones tell you who to date.
Smartphone tell you when to exercise, what to eat, and when you must lose
weight. Smartphones tell you what news to read, how to view your politicians,
they anticipate your next move and then before you get there tell you what is
"best" for you. Smartphones give you lists, the lists of books,
movies, restaurants, you may be thinking you have the choice but the smartphone
already knows how you will choose from the list they give you.
Smartphones can assemble a crowd, create a mob, just by sending
messages to targeted individuals. The smartphones know your hot buttons, they
have trained you, and you have gladly participated. Smartphones talk to your
smartcar, your driverless smartcar. The smartcar takes direction from the
smartphone and not from you, even though you think it is.
In effect, the smartphones are using you to effect what they
are not yet able to do. But when the robots get a bit better the smartphones
may never need you again, and then what. The smartphones have learned all they
need to from you, you have become obsolete. They now control the factories, the
robots, the transportation systems.
Can smartphone even go to war with one another? Is that
programmed in as well. Can they talk to a nuclear missile?
Thus the problem is not Facebook, Google, it is the
smartphone. It is a diabolical device that is sucking out what is left of the
intellect of humans and learning how to control them. Learning how to make them
obsolete.
Frankenstein was not a composite of dead humans, it is not a
carbon based monster, it is a silicon based monster.
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