Naked to the machine
The omniscience of the computer may offer solace from privacy invasion in an unlikely way. There are many things that are done by humans that could be done by computers, where the result may not be sensitive, but the intermediary stages are.
No one cares if a machine sees what they're reading, watching or browsing on the Internet. It's like getting undressed in front of a cat.
If software were designed so that it used encrypted databases for its internal functions such that the computer knew the key and there was no easy way for the programmers to get it, then humans would only be able to see the output, not the intermediary data needed for decision-making.
For instance, computers could scan thousands of nude pictures, looking for signs of cancer and only showing the pictures that were rated "suspicious", preserving the rest from casual voyeurism.
A more topical example would be counterterrorism. Most citizens would have less grief about a computer sorting through the electronic details of their personal life if human handlers were denied access to the details of the innocent.
Food for thought.
Posted on November 18, 2005
