Is Tech Moving Faster Than Regulation Can React - #JayToday
On my way to Las Vegas recently, I had an interesting experience that I wanted to share.
I was on my laptop using the Wi-Fi on Southwest Airlines.
And on the new Macintosh computers, you may be aware of this, you can connect your phone and your iPad and your laptop together so that even if you were doing say text messaging but using iMessage, so it’s not actually using text but it uses Wi-Fi to connect from iPhone to iPhone, that will show up on your laptop.
So you can essentially be sending text messages from your laptop, although it’s not actually text messaging because you’re using the Wi-Fi signal, not an actual cell phone signal.
So I was doing that in the air. I bought the Wi-Fi package from Southwest, and I was having a chat with some friends who were visiting with me out here in Las Vegas.
The flight attendant saw me and then talked to the pilot, and then, without calling me out by name, comes on the microphone and says, “Hey, I just want to remind you, everybody on the flight, that it’s against FAA regulations to be sending text messages during flight.”
So I felt a little bit admonished, but I thought, you know, I’m not sending a text message. I’m using this new Wi-Fi. But it’s amazing because the flight attendant doesn’t understand that nuanced of technology. Certainly the pilot doesn’t understand what I was doing was completely appropriate and legal.
And here I found myself at this IBM event in Las Vegas, which is all about the advances in technology and the Internet of things, and it’s moving so quickly.
Some remarkable discoveries and announcements came out of the show, and it really got me thinking technology is moving SO fast.
Our regulatory environment cannot move fast enough to keep up.
It’s a real challenge.
Think about even drugs. You’ve got kids making new formulas for spice and bath salts every five minutes. State legislatures can’t regulate that fast enough to keep it out of the hands of kids.
We are at an inflection point where technology is moving so fast we don’t know how to put rules and regulations around the use of that technology.
That’s, my friends, is when things start to spiral out of control.
Something to think about. I’ll certainly be watching it myself.
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