With every new invention intended for good, you can count on someone working on using it for evil and/or to fatten their pockets. The unholy trinity (the love of Money, Power, and the Appetite of the Flesh) will be quick to raise its ugly head and get to work.  You can count on it like the rising of the sun in the east and its setting in the west.

Social media will inevitably attract aggressive scam artists looking to separate consumers from their money by any means necessary. Sex peddlers and pedophiles will scan the web and social platforms for naive youths and curiosity seekers. 

While technology has changed the world and aided in tremendous advancements, it has also led to tremendous problems and chaos. We are now living in a world that provides easy access to information on the World Wide Web and has made available a pathway to education without leaving one’s home or searching the encyclopedia or dictionary. Most of us carry a pocket-size computer in our pockets that opens doors to the world.

We can now talk to anyone on the planet who has like access. It has given us the ability to have a camera and video at our fingertips. At some point, perhaps any day now, we should be getting that live footage of those UFOs, alien abductions, Big Foot, and the Loch Ness monster. I can’t wait. 

We can connect with people we have lost track of over the years. We can start technologically driven businesses and even work from home.

Cars are being self-driven. (Ok, that one doesn’t seem to be perfected as of yet, and I’m not looking to be that experimental guinea pig. No thanks, I’ll wait).

Our TVs have gone from high definition to 4K to 8K clarity. Good luck with finding channels that carry the updated technology, but all in time, I’m sure. What’s next, in-home holograms? Hmm, now there’s a thought.

We are exploring space travel and examining the possibility of colonizing other planets. Well, with the way we are going, we may need other options after destroying this one for the love of money and power.

Surveillance technology has moved 1984’s “Big Brother” written in 1949 by George Orwell, into current-day reality. We can even be watched in our own homes via our chosen technological devices, without our knowledge. Traveling from point A to B we are often monitored by cameras and listening devices. Yes, Big Brother is watching us.

Social media and modern technology have a tremendous amount of information on those of us who function in the modern world. And if you are not a player in the game, your access to basic needs becomes less and less. Perhaps it’s a road toward the book of Revelation “Mark of the Beast.”

How many of us are actually addicted to our hand-held computers i.e. phones? This is not by chance but by design. Algorithms are used strategically to cater to consumers, to market goods to the most likely purchasers, as well as ideas and beliefs to those most open to them. It can be a form of mind control via repeated exposure and the power of repetition of imagery.

It can influence how we think politically, socially, and even racially, playing into the hand of white supremacist ideology. He who controls the narrative often controls the results of said narrative, and our current technology plays a large role in narrative control.    

 Yes, technology has a lot of upsides. But unfortunately, it also has a dark side.

For instance, surveillance technology using facial recognition has displayed several kinks in the system by failing to correctly identify darker-complexioned individuals, which can lead to a lack of access to anything that depends upon the accuracy of the program, and it can also lead to false arrests by law enforcement.

Such mistakes can have dangerous and even deadly consequences. In 2019 at least 75 countries were using this technology with more looking to sign on. This technology is only as good as the biometric data input into the system and who is controlling that input. If those who control the input have racial biases, then it only stands to reason that the input might be flawed. There are also natural factors to contend with such as lighting issues, which might be overlooked when the focus is on those classified as “white.”

“Research by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US found the majority of facial recognition algorithms exhibited more false positives against people of color, and there have been at least three cases of a wrongful arrest of a black man based on facial recognition evidence.”

In addition, AI technology is now being examined as a possible threat to mankind. The first law of nature is self-preservation. It is the case for every living creature inclusive of plants all the way to the planet itself.

High-risk judgments are made on people on probation who are successfully starting new reformed lives, holding back their progress and hope of becoming productive members of society. This only reinforces a continuation of the new Jim Crow, the high monetary-producing prison industrial system supporting racism/white supremacy.

“Racism is becoming mechanized, robotized.” (Coded Bias )

Health care prioritized medical care for healthier white patients over more ill Black patients by UnitedHealth Group’s algorithm indicating racial discrimination in health care. The same has been the case with issuing loans, and who gets hired. And guess what groups are coming up short.

Facial recognition is more apt to misdiagnose Black and brown faces versus their Anglo light-skinned counterparts.  

Netflix’s “Coded Bias” addresses this troubling issue. Add to that the centuries-old racial biases and the continued shape-shifting maneuvers of racism/white supremacy via this modern-day technology and you potentially have a formula for the next generation of a system of Jim Crow tactics.