Dangerous technology trends you need to know about

The latest technology brings convenience to our lives,admiration and a lot of positive emotions, however, we must observe vigilance because of the possible negative consequences of using innovations. A list of the 7 most dangerous technological trends that have already shown their dark side is presented to your attention.

Fake news

“Propaganda – This is the art of photographing a devil without hooves and horns.”

Hans Kasper (1916 – 1990) − German writer and author of radio shows. 

In the world media is steadily growingnumber of programs like GROVER − systemsartificial intelligence that can write a fake news article on any topic. Such programs generate more believable articles than copywriters do. The secret is that AI processes large amounts of data and supports its articles with facts that a person cannot always even guess about.

The most successful in this direction has becomenonprofit company OpenAI supported by Elon Musk. OpenAI's results are so good that the organization initially decided not to publish the results of the research publicly to prevent dangerous misuse of the technology. The main danger of plausible fake news is that their quality can deceive even critically minded people who are not subject to brainwashing by propaganda.

Drones swarms

The loudest example of negative usedrones was their recent attack on the oil platforms of Saudi Arabia, the damage from which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars. As a result of the attack, global oil reserves were depleted by about 5%, but the convenience of using drones for military operations suggests that similar situations will continue.

A swarm of drones can be organized to achievetargets through interaction with each other, creating a new type of super-dangerous weapon. At the moment, the technology is still at the experimental stage, but the reality of the swarm, which will be able to coordinate its behavior to achieve the most complex military tasks, is approaching reality.

Smart Home Device Spying

So that smart home devices couldrespond to requests and be as helpful as possible, they should be equipped with microphones to listen to voice commands. When a person installs a smart speaker in his room, he also signs that now there is also a little scrupulous spy living in his house, who does not let a single word pass his ears.

All smart devices collectinformation about habits and preferences, place of residence and routes of movement, time of arrival and departure from home. This information makes life more convenient, but there is also the possibility of data misuse. Thieves and scammers are actively working on tools that will allow them to take possession of all the information collected. In case of successful hacking of personal data from the cloud servers of Amazon, Google, Yandex or any other artificial intelligence platform, attackers will receive all the necessary information to blackmail or steal real things from home.

One of the biggest scandals in thisthe direction was Amazon employees listening to recordings of conversations of their customers with the Amazon Echo smart speaker this spring. Obviously, Amazon employees should not use this information for selfish purposes, but no one can guarantee this.

Face recognition with camcorders

Smartphone maker Huawei last yearaccused of using facial recognition technology for surveillance and racial profiling, as well as transferring access keys to foreign networks to Chinese intelligence. 

Millions of cameras on smartphones and laptopsare used to track and recognize people not only in China – This practice has been observed in almost every country in the world. The only difference is that in some places this was proven (the Snowden case in the USA), and in others – No.

AI cloning

Artificial intelligence is capable of generatingphrases in the voice of any person. To do this, just one fragment of audio recording with his voice is enough. Similarly, AI can create a video of any person that looks natural and believable. The negative consequences of such videos and audio recordings are extensive: from hacking of bank accounts to blackmail and political scandals. 

Deepfake uses machine-made face mappinglearning and artificial intelligence to create behavior models. The initial data for generating a fake are different shapes of a person’s face, which are easier to obtain from a large array of records. Previously, such amounts of public data were only reserved for celebrities, but social media has changed that. Now ordinary people download gigabytes of amateur videos with them, providing Deepfake masters with all the necessary sources for processing. 

The most successful in identifying fake videos is a program created at the University of Berkeley.

AI and Phishing Viruses

Artificial intelligence greatly simplifieswork for phishing networks that need an effective tool for automating and scaling the volume of work. AI helps attackers better find “weak” attacks. mailing addresses and accounts on social networks, more accurately compose the texts of viral bait letters, more effectively bypass anti-virus software and, most importantly, collect money in an automated manner without the risk of being tracked by law enforcement agencies. In recent years, withdrawals of funds have become much more common using cryptocurrencies.

Smart dust

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)differ in microscopic sizes down to sand grains. The smallest piece of smart dust is called a mote. Mot – This is a sensor that has its own computing node, sensors, power supply and data transmission systems. Motes can combine with other motes to form what is called smart dust. Such systems are already used by attackers on an industrial scale in cases where it is necessary to hide surveillance as much as possible.