Living in the Age of AI

    There is no denying the popularly of social media and technology in todays society. The artificial intelligence within these technologies is important to understand for those who use it. The documentary "In the Age of AI", is an informative production worthwhile watching. After watching this documentary, I learned a lot about the personal data that is collected through artificial intelligence. Any and all information is valuable especially within advertising in todays society. Artificial intelligence plays a huge role in marketing, and no matter what website, social media platform, or device you are using, you are always trailing data that is collected by AI. 

Interests, personal thoughts, friends, behavior, and style are some of the many things that AI can determine about you in order customize advertisements, search suggestions, and posts that come up on social media feeds. The collection of data is not necessarily a bad thing but could potentially be dangerous for your personal privacy as well as national security.

 In addition to emails, phone numbers, bank information, addresses, and birthdays, facial recognition on security cameras and phones play a role in the threat of identity theft among users. You would be "horrified if you knew how much Google knew about you" was one statement from the documentary that stuck out to me and proved: you truly never know the extent to the information that AI is able to collect from us. 

Chinese based technology companies have been "blacklisted" to not work with the U.S. due to risks to national U.S. security. Some government agencies believe that companies such as Huawei use AI in their technologies that enable the Chinese government to collect data on customers that use their products. 

The next time you see an ad about something you be have been talking about, or even a post from a store you were just shopping at, think about the information AI has been collecting and what they may know about you.