AI – about privacy

In China already today (in a fairly wide experiment) a personal credit system is being used. The government monitors the behavior of the public and gives credit (positive or negative) depending on the behavior of the citizens: you spat in the street – minus, you helped the old woman cross the road – plus, you didn’t pay the electricity bill on time – minus, you stood patiently in line – plus… depending on the credit you will receive priority in receiving services: minus – you can’t book a ticket for the high-speed train, plus – a loan with a better interest rate. In contrast, the European Union, which leads in the regulation of privacy and information protection, is beginning to pay attention to the need to protect human privacy, information and algorithms that refer to a person (still in the stages of legislation and the beginning of implementation), for example, it is forbidden to rank a person (let’s say in hiring) based on an algorithm alone, or an algorithm, that treats a person physically or s]psychologically, must be strictly examined.

Those who have read my posts on the subject of ‘Artificial Intelligence in the service of education‘ know that I believe that technology will be effective when it gets to know us (personally) first and foremost, I also believe that this is happening now and will expand significantly in the near future and furthermore, I believe that technology will not wait for us and will be inevitable. Just as printing increased secularization, the automobile supported the creation of mega-cities and the media encouraged work around the clock, so in my opinion artificial intelligence (together with a virtual reality device) will change education (not only).

Yet the issue of personal information safety is far from satisfactory. Already today, a lot of information has accumulated about us: what we searched for, where we were, what we bought… and we know that sometimes this information leaks or reaches hands we did not intend for or did not give permission for. In the next generation, we are talking about a greater amount of information and some of it is much more intimate. Since the system will accompany the user 24X7, it will know about his/her features, preferences, health status, academic status and social status… everything! Information that if falls into the wrong hands, can at best convince the student to buy products he/she doesn’t need and at worst cause him/her long-term mental, social or financial damage.

I want to believe that there will be a regulation that will ensure that information about me will not be used against my will, I want to believe that governments and conglomerates will not abuse this information, and I really want to believe that hackers will not succeed in using information about me. However, whether the optimal conditions are met or not, I believe that little by little, without us noticing, the system will know more and more details about us, and will take advantage of it to provide us with more services (some of them are good for us and some are good to their senders). Since I am an optimist by nature, I want to believe that the good will outweigh the bad.

In my opinion, we cannot oppose the trend of using artificial intelligence in education, since it is already present all around us and will be much more present in the future in every field, personal and public, work and leisure. What can we do? Just like we fight thieves, on the one hand we trust the police, on the other hand, we install a deadbolt and a safe at home. In the same way on personal information, most of the treatment should be by government regulation, as other (less friendly/liberal) governments, conglomerates and greedy people stand in front. Also we have to be careful which apps to use and how.