he Googleplex corporate headquarters complex of Google and its parent company Alphabet in Mountain View, Calif.  Not just a search engine, soon control of autonomous tranpost, even biotech and ever widening technology

The corporate headquarters complex of Google and its parent company Alphabet in Mountain View, Calif. Not just a search engine, soon control of autonomous transport, even biotech and ever widening technology and influence over our lives
Photo Credit: Wikpedia

The existential threat of giant “tech” corporations

We live our lives increasingly surrounded by technology. This is not  just for communication. Algorithms now write news and sports stories, decide whose job request resumes get accepted or rejected , allow us to turn our house lights on or off from a distance,  register our exercise patterns, soon will drive us and our goods, and so much more.

And it’s all gathered and controlled by a few giant multinational tech companies.

Franklin Foer says its becoming a threat to our humanity  we should be concerned. He is a journalist and author of “World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech.”

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Journalist and author Franklin Foer
Journalist and author Franklin Foer

While providing us with convenience, these few companies are surreptitiously taking control of our lives

They’re taking control of our privacy and of contemplation,  introspection and autonomous thought.

Foer says the corporate ambitions of multinational giants like google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon for example are seeking and getting control over things like privacy, intellectual property, while having the ability to influence society in directions they might choose.

An aerial view in April of Apple’s new headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. Designed by Lord Norman Foster and costing about $5 billion, it will house 13,000 employees in 2.8 million square feet of space with 80 acres of parking for 11,000 cars
An aerial view in April of Apple’s new headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. Designed by Lord Norman Foster and costing about $5 billion, it will house 13,000 employees in 2.8 million square feet of space with 80 acres of parking for 11,000 cars © Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

They are monopolists who simply absorb any and all potential competition while seeking access to our identities as individuals and influencing our decision making.

World Without Mind: The existential threat of Big Tech* author Franklin Foer
World Without Mind: The existential threat of Big Tech* author Franklin Foer © Penguin- Random House Publishing

While tracing the origins of computer science from Descartes and the enlightenment to the rise of these supranational giant corporations.

Apple is offering the ability to unlock the iPhone X with facial recognition rather than a fingerprint or passcode. Everything you do online can be recorded and stored forever.
Apple is offering the ability to unlock the iPhone X with facial recognition rather than a fingerprint or passcode. Everything you do online can be recorded and stored forever. © Stephen Lam/Reuters)

Foer says few people have grasped the sheer scale of the threat to us as individuals and  on a societal level. He explains not just the looming existential crisis but the imperative of resistance.

Penguin- Random House Publishers (World without Mind)

Categories: International, Internet, Science & Technology, Society
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