Deep in Silicon Valley (3): Who awakened the demon?

I want to start with a story that's been circulated today [1]:

"In the mountains, there lived a farmer, who depended on his own cultivation, but a herd of wild boars often came out to eat the farmer's crops, and the farmer tried to destroy the wild boar, and he bought the shotgun and kept it in the field all night, and then shot at it when he found the boar." But this method plays a very small role, because the field is very large, wild boar and very cunning, will not be fixed in the same place. The farmer can kill a wild boar occasionally, but still can't avoid the tragedy that the farmland is bitten.

Later, the farmer came up with a clever idea. He took the best and sweetest corn in the field, and stacked it in a fixed place, luring the boar to eat it for free. At first, the boar was very wary, but after a few months of sweet corn, found very safe and labor-saving, neither need to "pick" corn, and no farmers to attack, so the wild boar feel at ease to eat up. A few more months later, the farmer was ready to collect the nets. He began to build tall, thick planks on the periphery, building only one plank a day, and the boars were unaware of the crisis. Until one day, the farmer nailed the last plank to the ground, forming a closed round sty. At this time, the boar know the trap, want to escape from the pigsty, but it is too late. What's more, after a few months of satiety, the boar became a fat clumsy home pig, losing all the fighting power. The rest of the thing is, the farmer dragged one day out ...

This story tries to illustrate the truth: there is no free lunch. If one thing appears to be "free" on the surface, it must have hidden some kind of price.

Now, let's take a look at the "free" model that is going on in the internet industry. This new business model is being praised by some big bosses as subversive "internet thinking". However, in my opinion, this business model is based on a kind of "hypocrisy". The so-called "hypocrisy" refers to the Internet enterprises to "the pursuit of commercial interests," the essence of a few more circles, hidden outside the consumer's vision. Of course, this kind of "hypocrisy" does not have any derogatory meaning, just an objective description.

In fact, this free model is not new and hot, it was in the first generation of Internet companies 1994 years of birth (on behalf of Yahoo), it exists. At that time, people were free to get the most timely news from Yahoo's website without paying for newspapers. With the advent of Google, this model has been carried forward. People can not only see the free news from Google, but also get free mailboxes, free cloud storage, free video, free office software, free operating system, free maps ... Google is almost free of everything. Of course, these "free" have a price: people need to give their "privacy" to Google to manage, more accurately, to Google's huge computer system to manage.

From the perspective of pattern recognition, a person's "privacy" is equivalent to a "feature" of the person (feature). A real world person, in the virtual computer world, is entirely by his characteristics to express. Ideally, if enough features are obtained, the computer can fully understand a person's inner world. In layman's parlance, the computer has a mind-reading operation. The next step in its nature is the computer's "control of the Operation".

A few days ago, Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Motor, spoke at a lecture at MIT about the fear that artificial intelligence might awaken an uncontrollable demon [2]. (with artificial FDI we re summoning the demon.) There's the guy with the pentagram, and the holy labeled, and he's Like-yeah, he's throaty can control the demon? Doesn't ' t work out: We're summoning a demon with artificial intelligence. Like some guys, they think they can control the demon through the Holy Grail and holy water, but in fact, it's impossible. ）

In my opinion, Elon Musk is not alarmist, but a real possibility.

In fact, many of our actions are now controlled by computers. I watch the news every day, is recommended by Google, my online shopping products are recommended by Google, I booked the hotel is Google recommended, I go to the restaurant is Google recommended, I drive the route is Google recommended, Even the date of my trip is Google based on the ticket price to optimize the arrangement. I do not bother, very labor, basically quickly become a "home pig". If, I mean, if Google wanted to murder me, it would just have to navigate me to the cliff.:<

If the first generation of Yahoo is just piling up "corn", then the second-generation Google has started building "Mu Yi" around the corn. Of course, it's a long time before the last plank, but the trend is latent and even irreversible.

We might as well think about it further. On the surface, it is artificial intelligence that awakens demons, but artificial intelligence is built on large data of our privacy, and access to our privacy is based on what is called "free" mode (Internet thinking). But why does the "free" model rise? Is this because of the hidden evil in the depths of our humanity? (for example, laziness, profit, hypocrisy) when we observe the "evil" in the depths of human nature, but also accuse the distant "demon"?

Perhaps we have awakened the demon, or maybe we are the devil ourselves.