The Great Hack

Humans were always far better at inventing tools than using them wisely.

Harari

Humans rule the earth, and are already putting their imprints on the entire known universe, only because they invented handy tools for transfer of knowledge, effective communications, and carrying out organized and coordinated activities. One common thread that runs through all such tools is abstraction, that is, the ability to use one entity, accurately and rationally, as a proxy to another entity. Alas, all tools that rely on abstraction are terribly susceptible to hacking, which is merely a malicious entity disguising as a endemic entity.

The modern IT infrastructure and services are, at their core, a much evolved and sophisticates version of the primitive tools humans used to clamber to the top. Hence, it can be argued that humans are beings of an interconnected reality, and the tools that filter, process, and modify reality are necessary for their survival. These tools, unbeknownst to most of us, churn data and skim out knowledge in forms of customer profiles, application features, financial and behavioral models etc. It is evident that data does not simply disappear, it does not jut fuel the modern IT juggernaut. Data gets transformed it useful knowledge and meaningless noise, the yin and yang of the great modern IT juggernaut.

IT, similar to all the other tools, are susceptible to some or other sort of hacking. Also, most of us so not take the time to understand the terms and conditions of use of the modern IT juggernaut.

Contrary to popular belief, we do not need big data and sophisticated models to tell us about our rational behavior. Rational behaviors and the outcome of rational actions have been studied for long and a lot is know about it. What makes data immensely useful is its utility in telling us about our irrational behavior, that is the real domain of data and analytics.

IT infrastructure and services have been successful in modeling and pandering to our emotions. They can accurately detect our anxieties much better than us. It would not be far fetched to say that given enough data and processing power, they can tell us more about ourselves than we know. Notwithstanding, people do not want to conceded that IT driven manipulation works because to concede it is to believe in our own susceptibility.

In the recent past, we have seen IT move mountains in political systems through election manipulation, financial systems through blockchain, and much more. The major world powers have stepped back from the precipice of cyber warfare quite a few time in the last two decade. The race for claiming quantum supremacy is much fiercely fought than the race to the moon, and not just among nation states but also among multination IT giants.

IT driven infrastructure and services have been reported to have interfered with democratic process across the globe through data driven analytics. IT driven surveillance is something we had seen coming long ago. Absolutely nobody is immune to the pernicious effects of hacking, be they millionaire CEO of a multinational technology giant or a long standing political veteran. There is no way to prevent this continuous pouring of personal and sensitive information into the traps set for harness that kind of information. The best we can do is to stringently control this leakage of information and hope that would be sufficient.

It is a common misconception that IT driven manipulation techniques are useful in sowing the seeds of polarization. Certainly, IT driven analytic psychometric manipulation works best in already polarized societies. The amazing ability of IT driven techniques in nudging people standing at the extreme ends of any distribution has been proven successfully in multiple election campaigns, PSYOPs and finance businesses. Moreover, anyone who believes in the might of pen over swords would concede that online mockery, derision, defamation, and bullying is the most vicious use of IT. In the preceding arguments, I have positioned IT infrastructure and services as belonging to a class of tools that enable humans to communicate and coordinate activities at a massive scale for achieving goals that are seemingly impossible to achieve. It is at this point that the contradiction endemic to all human made artifacts unravels in the domain IT. IT continues to be the most divisive and pernicious piece of technology that is taking the humankind forward.

This begs a question, are we already using weapon grade technology when it comes to IT services? If you think this is a hyperbole, consider the history of fire, or dynamite!