Essay Example on Current Technology Issues

Technology has changed the way we live today in many fields. The world has evolved in the manner we perform our activities, and thus, the world has become a global village where communication is passed from one place to another within a split second. Consequently, it has enabled different sectors in the globe to evolve from their traditional methods to new and modern ways. Current trends involve examining social-cultural, economic, environmental and political issues involving new technological trends. The technological issues range from privacy in social media, cybersecurity, immigration to mention a few which will be discussed and their huge impacts on current daily lives.

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Many countries have invested heavily in privacy-related technologies. The move has been as a result of a growing concern by the subscribers over access of personal information. Governments have thus been tapping their resources to technological companies that build algorithms that can detect and fix any breach of accessing private data. The matter has been of primary concern to the public domain over the number of people who can access and use one's data to perform illegal activities with the already obtained information (Buchanan and Charles 44). The debate has seen many issues raised over whether controlling other people information is a move to protect the people or on one side to the government intruding in peoples own platforms and using the information lawfully but without consent of the owner. Many terrorist organizations have been involved in blackmail in the recent years, which is partially due to many websites lacking functional firewalls to block other people from breaching the protection and gaining access to other people's accounts. Even with many tech-companies giving contingent rules to provide notification to invade peoples' private data, there still lies significant milestones in ensuring that users are aware of the dire consequences that may arise due to allowing other people to access personal data. These can only be done through extensive education to internet users on the implications of allowing access to different people viewing personal data (Buchanan and Charles 45).

Cyber-attacks have grown over the recent years facilitated by lack of protection from the chip level of a computer to hardware components. Technology advancement has seen many innovations in terms of software used to create algorithms which in turn can be used even to destroy diplomacy between two city-states or countries. The cyber-attacks witnessed recently were also, a move to jeopardize election and provide misguided information to break the existing systems of either democracy or socialism systems. Many governments thus understood the pivotal role Information Technology strengthening was required. Extensive research and innovation were hence incorporated to ensure breach of government websites would be almost impossible. Tech-companies like Microsoft put forward steps to provide cybersecurity protection. The attacks were not mostly financial related but also massive stealing tons of data and research was purloined. Many companies united arms to combat cyberterrorism and hence invested heavily in the protection of pervasive devices.

Technology advancement and subsequent technology race between developed countries have also seen economic ties between states broken. The growing demand for national pride and recognition has seen technological competition between rival states break previously established trade ties. Countries have suspended their economic relationships due to fear of being overtaken technologically. Countries have imposed higher tariffs due to rivalry in technological advancement. The traders have, in turn, suffered immensely by lacking raw materials to produce their goods of trade. Technological advancement has also been accused of breaking diplomatic ties in the past years, where key government websites are illegally accessed by other members with hidden agendas to compromise existing salinity (Manrai and Ajay 12).

The current technological advancement has seen many scientific related innovations and findings getting politicized. Many countries, especially the developed countries, perceive global warming as a retrogressive move to regress them against economic development. Global warming was once cited to be occurring more rapidly with the growth of un-environmental friendly industries. United Nations, therefore, called a meeting to reduce global warming. Global warming occurs a result of the greenhouse effect when carbon dioxide and Fluorocarbons are released to the atmosphere. Release of these harmful gases is a result of many industries investing in non-renewable energy, which is cheap and readily available. Technologist and scientists predicted when the amount of carbon dioxide emitted reached 2.0, the world would experience cataclysmic events including more devastating tornadoes a rising ocean tides. Many governments, including the united states, however, withdrew from the Paris agreement citing the signing was a move to backlash their technological advancement. Withdrawal of the United States from the Paris agreement means that the world will experience global warming shortly than it was expected (Manrai and Ajay 22). These are because it contributes more to industrialized cars that emit carbon dioxide than the less developed countries.

Natural gas dependency has risen over the past years due to nations refusing to use renewable energy like the wind. Many states use the process of Fracking to mine petroleum from underground. The process involves using pressurized water to break the underneath rocks to a viscous fluid. The process has been labelled by scientists to be un-environmentally friendly as it causes water pollution. The move is because it contaminates drinking water with unwanted minerals. The use of silicon to remove hazardous chemicals can be applied in the fracking process yet many states in the United States where Fracking process is referred to mine Petroleum claim to suffer from use of drinking water that is supplied to many homes. Moreover, industries continue to dump their waste materials to the lakes where drinking water is sourced. The government chooses efforts that yield returns in terms of taxation preceding the consequences the methods used will bring to the later generations (Manrai and Ajay 10).

Ethical issues in Artificial Intelligence of facial recognition continue to take center stage in technological debates. Artificial Intelligence creators include Amazon and Microsoft companies. The government of the United States adopted facial recognition as a method of protecting their citizens from terror attacks. The government thus invested heavily on creating algorithms that even detect motives of any individual, whether a resident or an alien of the country. There is, however growing concern of whether there would be discrimination from the program created of incarcerating innocent citizens based on their religious backgrounds and lack of proper information from the software. Artificial Intelligence is a human-made established program with flaws that may bring about subsequent penalization of visitors who are perceived to be national threats. Activism societies have brought about relentless concerns of AI on privacy and other democratic liberties that may be infringed by these programs.

Rural areas continue to remain economically backwards due to lack of access to the Internet and telecommunications (Dervin and Brenda 25). This brings about unemployment and inequality due to marginalized areas being politically divided due to lack of information on what is happening around them. The Internet has become a basic need as many countries use internet platforms to address their citizens and even advertise for job vacancies. Lack of access reduces a society's productivity as education provided is of low quality and does not make use of high technology to teach their students to compete in the labor markets. The people are thus regressed with a mismatch of skills and are forced to take subsidized jobs to cater to their needs (Dervin and Brenda 22). The consequent of the matter is inequality and marginalization of areas that possess a potentially viable population to contribute to a country's GDP.

Conclusion

In conclusion, society has been forced to either acclimatize with technology having many issues raised whether the technology advancement will develop peoples' lives or prove to be divisive. There is, therefore, a need to ensure any technology development is inclusive of all the societal demands to enhance equality and cohesion in the community. The government is responsible for ensuring the society is included in any technological advancement to ensure the rights of the people are not infringed.

Works Cited

Buchanan, Elizabeth A. and Charles M. Ess. "Internet Research Ethics and the Institutional Review Board: Current Practices and Issues." ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society39.3 (2009): 43-49. https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1713069 Accessed 18 June 2019

Dervin, Brenda. Issues in New Information Technology. Ed. Benjamin M. Compaine. Ablex Publishing Corporation, 2013.

Manrai, Lalita A., and Ajay K. Manrai. "Current Issues In The Cross-Cultural And Cross-National Consumer Research." Journal of International Consumer Marketing 8.3-4 (2017): 9-22. https://doi.org/10.1300/J046v08n03_02 Accessed 15 June 2019