Should technology be regulated more?

@kevcvs57 said
I think ‘the genie’s out of the bottle’ best sums up the aspects of technology which could be harmful to society and detrimental to individuals. Every technological advancement seems to be a double edged sword.
Genetic engineering is a force for good if used in a responsible manner but for every couple that want to avoid passing in a congenital disease to their children th ...[text shortened]... immer or at a mundane level boys instead of girls. Technology is cursed by not existing in a vacuum.

Do you think something like GDPR would work?
You're in the UK, you probably have to comply with GDPR at work (?) Do you think something like it would be enough to keep people using technology appropriately. Well 'appropriately' I guess needs to be defined as well.

@yo-its-me said
Do you think something like GDPR would work?
You're in the UK, you probably have to comply with GDPR at work (?) Do you think something like it would be enough to keep people using technology appropriately. Well 'appropriately' I guess needs to be defined as well.

Yes we do use it at work and I would say it works in terms of keeping the flow of that data within the office but there is ample potential for that not happening either accidentally or maliciously.
I think it could work if the consequences of non compliance were hefty enough and if we have the technology to trace the digital flow of that data. The elimination of accidental non compliance is probably achievable but protecting any data from malicious intent would be a lot more difficult if not practicably impossible.

@kevcvs57 said
Yes we do use it at work and I would say it works in terms of keeping the flow of that data within the office but there is ample potential for that not happening either accidentally or maliciously.
I think it could work if the consequences of non compliance were hefty enough and if we have the technology to trace the digital flow of that data. The elimination of accidental ...[text shortened]... otecting any data from malicious intent would be a lot more difficult if not practicably impossible.

I mean something like it, like getting anyone who applies for a patent on their work, that they must also agree to only use it in certain ways maybe? Only distribute it for certain allowed reasons, only sell their products in restricted purposes. It would take some thinking to come up with rules that aren't so restrictive that it's not commercial any more.

Like for example, if Echo manufacturers had to guarantee that the listening device couldn't be tapped into.

@kevcvs57 said
😂😂 heads up MB I’ve been using my phone to purchase goods for a while.
What would we barter with?

Not the internet. Look into how they buy things in Finland.

If society becomes cashless black market coveted stuff has to be purchased overtly. To make it covert when you buy heroin you have to resort to barter....unless heroin becomes legal.

@yo-its-me said
I mean something like it, like getting anyone who applies for a patent on their work, that they must also agree to only use it in certain ways maybe? Only distribute it for certain allowed reasons, only sell their products in restricted purposes. It would take some thinking to come up with rules that aren't so restrictive that it's not commercial any more.

Like for example, if Echo manufacturers had to guarantee that the listening device couldn't be tapped into.

Good luck with coming up with a set of rules.

Ifor your example: You can't guarantee with Echo that nobody can tap it given enough skil and criminal intend. We don't use any of those "digital assistants".

@kevcvs57 said
I think ‘the genie’s out of the bottle’ best sums up the aspects of technology which could be harmful to society and detrimental to individuals.

Well, we do manage to regulate medicines fairly effectively, mandating clinical trials and insisting on prescription by a relevant medical professional.

I wonder if we might have escaped a few disasters if we had run clinical trials on the effect of smartphones and social media on the human brain. I can't imagine we'd have let the genie out of the bottle if we'd had the evidence that those inventions were likely to reduce us to creatures with the attention span of gnats trading bumper sticker rhetoric.

@teinosuke said
Well, we do manage to regulate medicines fairly effectively, mandating clinical trials and insisting on prescription by a relevant medical professional.

I wonder if we might have escaped a few disasters if we had run clinical trials on the effect of smartphones and social media on the human brain. I can't imagine we'd have let the genie out of the bottle if we'd had the ...[text shortened]... e likely to reduce us to creatures with the attention span of gnats trading bumper sticker rhetoric.

It’s takes quite some time to run socio psychology based trials how long has it taken for the harmful effects to manifest themselves. This might be seen as a period of transition in hindsight. It’s hard not to see change as disruptive and harmful from the transition era perspective.

@yo-its-me said
I mean something like it, like getting anyone who applies for a patent on their work, that they must also agree to only use it in certain ways maybe? Only distribute it for certain allowed reasons, only sell their products in restricted purposes. It would take some thinking to come up with rules that aren't so restrictive that it's not commercial any more.

Like for example, if Echo manufacturers had to guarantee that the listening device couldn't be tapped into.

Well yes it’s possible to come up with the rules and supporting legislation but enforcement is going to require a different kind of law enforcement officer and because of the nature of the technology international cooperation hitherto unheard of.

@kevcvs57 said
Well yes it’s possible to come up with the rules and supporting legislation but enforcement is going to require a different kind of law enforcement officer and because of the nature of the technology international cooperation hitherto unheard of.

There was a time before immigration needed to be monitored, before the late 17c there wasn't even a Home Office in the UK. Maybe there needs to be a whole task force whose job it is to monitor and check on technology.
There is so much unknown. Just this week a study from Ireland was published that babies are swallowing millions of microplastic particles a day (unless they are exclusively breastfed). No one knows what effect that might have. There's a whole area in New York that's uninhabitable because of pollution from manufacturing (Dead Horse Bay). It could be part of the task force who work on the Global Warming solution (which David Attenborough has said is about replanting the rain forests where they were). Speaking of the Global Warming, it was partly caused by the industrial revolution- had anyone been there to say you can't go polluting the air, all that pollution will just come back down again/ stay in the atmosphere- maybe we'd have saved ourselves a whole load of death.
As a protective measure, I think a separate task force/team/office with power is needed.

@yo-its-me said
There was a time before immigration needed to be monitored, before the late 17c there wasn't even a Home Office in the UK. Maybe there needs to be a whole task force whose job it is to monitor and check on technology.
There is so much unknown. Just this week a study from Ireland was published that babies are swallowing millions of microplastic particles a day (unless they ...[text shortened]... of death.
As a protective measure, I think a separate task force/team/office with power is needed.

Your right it will need to be a dedicated task force made up of experts in the field with intergovernmental authority along the lines of The Hague but with sharp enough teeth to take a chunk out of the big boys like the USA and China.
On the up side techies seem to be developing a natural predator for them micro plastics and plastics in general. It’s a bit ‘There was an old lady’ but I think we’ve got the technological tiger by the tail now and we’ve got to cling on and hope that it comes up with the solutions to the problems it’s created.