When it comes to technology, is life imitating the art of science fiction?
A standard theme in science fiction centers on advances - artificial intelligence, robotics, etc. - that exceed human ability to control or manage them.
That theme was sounded in an Associated Press story, "Deepening dependency on technology raises risk of breakdowns," published in the July 10 News Tribune.
Referring to outages at United Airlines, the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street Journal, Avivah Litan said, "The problem is humans can't keep up with all the technology they have created. It is becoming unmanageable to the human brain. Our best hope may be that computers eventually will become smart enough to maintain themselves." Litan is an analyst at Gartner, a technology research company.
The laws of physics dictate that actions create reactions. And human behavior demonstrates people will find a way to misuse or pervert advances in efficiency and convenience.
Examples include counterfeit currency, mail fraud, telephone robocalls and Internet hackers.
The theft of personal data - including Social Security numbers and health histories - was the topic of a separate Associated Press story in the July 10 edition. The story reported hackers stole personal information concerning 21 million people from a U.S. government computer system. (Emphasis ours.)
And yet a third story referenced a poll that found 77 percent of respondents worried about their financial information being compromised.
Clearly, we enjoy the convenience afforded by digital communications, but fear the potential for invasions of privacy.
Those justifiable fears will escalate as we approach a new technological frontier called the Internet of Things, a rather pedestrian name for process of linking computers with other electronic devices and household appliances.
The story on breakdowns included this observation from AP writers Michael Liedtke and Barabara Ortutay: "This technological daisy chain will increase the complexity of the systems and raise the risks of massive breakdowns, either through an inadvertent glitch or a malicious attack."
Additional consequences are discussed in today's op-ed by Vivek Wadhwa titled, "When your scale and fridge conspire, Internet of Things has gone too far" (on page A-10 of our July 19 print or e-newspaper editions).
Technology enhances convenience, but the risks are not only a loss of privacy and confidentiality; we also invite technology to pester and stalk us with advisories and recommendations.
Science fiction is entertaining, and often visionary.