Archive for the Our Future? Category

CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currencies):  The End Of Freedom, Privacy, Dignity, Sovereignty And Humanity.  And What Happens When AI (Artificial Intelligence) Takes Over Control Of CBDCs?  (April 17, 2023)

Posted in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), Digital Identification System (DIS), Our Future? on April 17, 2023 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “What happens when AI takes control of CBDCs?”

J          “We lose our humanity and cease being human.”

. . .

J          “The government’s inevitable descent and devolution into a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) means the end of freedom, privacy, dignity, sovereignty and humanity.  Period.”

K          “The government’s inevitable descent and devolution into a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) means the end of humanity, sovereignty, dignity, privacy and freedom.  Full stop.”

. . .

J          “Not good.”

K          “Real bad.”

. . .

K          “Someone said that a cashless society cannot be implemented unless a digital identification system is in place first.  The digital identification system is the line in the sand that cannot be crossed.”

J          “We are way over the line in the sand.  And most folks have buried their heads in the sand.”

. . .

K          “So few folks get it.”

J          “Soon many folks will get it.”

. . .

K          “What happens when AI takes control of CBDCs?”

. . .

[See “Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expresses strong disapproval of CBDCs and Digital IDs” by Brendan Taylor in “Insider Paper” dated April 7, 2023.  (“The central bank will have the power to enforce dollar limits on our transactions restricting where you can send money, where you can spend it, and when money expires.”)]

[See the e-commentary at The Promise Of AI (Artificial Intelligence) (August 20, 2018), “Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015)” Seven Years Later (January 10, 2022), “Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015)” Revisited:  The “Fondle Slab” Enslaves Us All (January 28, 2019) and Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015) and many other e-commentaries.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

What happens when AI takes control of CDBCs?

Question to ChatGPT-4:  What happens when AI takes control of CBDCs?

“When Artificial Intelligence (AI) takes over the management of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), several potential consequences and benefits may arise. It is essential to note that the extent and nature of these outcomes will depend on the degree of AI integration, the specific AI system used, and how it is designed and implemented. Some possible effects include:

  1. Improved efficiency: AI can help automate various processes related to CBDC management, leading to faster and more efficient transactions, reduced operational costs, and minimized human errors.
  2. Enhanced monetary policy implementation: AI can analyze vast amounts of economic data in real-time, enabling central banks to implement monetary policies more effectively. By identifying trends and patterns, AI can help central banks make better-informed decisions to maintain economic stability.
  3. Fraud and crime prevention: AI systems can identify suspicious transactions or patterns indicative of money laundering, terrorist financing, or other illicit activities, improving the overall security of the financial system.
  4. Financial inclusion: AI-driven CBDC management can potentially help extend financial services to underbanked or unbanked populations by lowering transaction costs and making banking more accessible.
  5. Tailored economic policies: AI can help central banks design and implement more targeted monetary policies by analyzing individual and regional economic data, leading to more effective and adaptive policy measures.
  6. Risks and challenges: AI-driven CBDC management also comes with potential risks, such as privacy concerns, increased centralization, reliance on AI systems, and potential job displacement in the financial sector. Ensuring that AI systems are transparent, accountable, and secure will be crucial for addressing these concerns.
  7. Ethical considerations: As AI takes over CBDC management, ethical concerns about algorithmic bias, transparency, and fairness must be considered and addressed to ensure that the system is fair and equitable for all users.

In summary, the integration of AI in the management of Central Bank Digital Currencies has the potential to bring numerous benefits to the financial system, including improved efficiency, enhanced monetary policy implementation, and increased financial inclusion. However, it is essential to address the potential risks and ethical considerations associated with AI-driven CBDC management to ensure a fair, transparent, and secure financial system.”  ChatGPT-4

Make cash great again

“Meanwhile there is still some freedom left in the world.  Many young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom.  But some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable.  Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long.  It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.”  Aldous Huxley

“If there is a solution to a problem, there is no need to worry.
And if there is no solution, there is no need to worry.”  Dalai Lama

Don’t worry.  Be happy.

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Our Future:  Tenants And Slaves (November 28, 2022)

Posted in Our Future?, Society on November 28, 2022 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Tenants and slaves.”

J          “Slaves and tenants.”

. . .

K          “BlackRock and others are buying up all the houses and then renting them.  Soon we will be mere tenants.”

J          “UnitedHealth and others are destroying medical practices and then devouring them and then demoting the physicians and staff into low paid indentured servitude.  That is happening in other industries.  Soon we will be mere slaves.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Tenants And Slaves

You’ll Own Nothing and You’ll Be Unhappy

Soon we will be mere slaves and tenants

In tonight’s final score, it was Tenants zero, Slaves zero.

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Weaponizing Turn Signals (September 19, 2022)

Posted in Our Future?, Society on September 19, 2022 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Turn signals are a subtle way for community members to communicate with each other.  A community member signals that he or she is making a move that could impact others in the community.”    

J          “So many people out there are so angry and bitter and frustrated and dangerous.  A vehicle provides a socially accepted weapon and driving it offers an opportunity to wield it.  A private tank on a public road if you will.  The little sliver of public road ahead of the driver may be the only thing that he or she can control for a few brief moments.”

. . .

K          “He is a grandfather and an otherwise reasonable and passive person.  After reflection and experience, he has decided not to use turn signals because they trigger others.  When he sees a safe opening and uses his turn signals, the vehicle in the other lane accelerates and cuts him off.  So he does not provide a clue and instead just changes lanes without notice and an opportunity for the vehicle to accelerate and cut him off.”

J          “I use the turn signal to test the tank driver in the other lane.  The tank often speeds up and passes creating an opening that allows me to change lanes.  Unless the following tank also speeds up.  With my blinker broadcasting my intentions all the time.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at “If I Get Diagnosed With Stage 4 Cancer . . . .” (December 13, 2021), Fight Or Flight In The Face Of Fear? A Principled Reaction To Stand (November 30, 2020), Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015), The Populace Is “Dis-ed”: Discombobulated, Disequilibrated, Disquieted, Disconcerted, Dislocated, Disillusioned, Disappointed, Dismayed, Dissed And Dis-ed (February 8, 2021), The Vaccine: The Shot Felt Round The World (November 23, 2020), Covid-19 PanICdemic/Plague:  TSD/PTSD In The New Plague War.  A New Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)? (April 27, 2020) and The Residue of Unrelenting Fear: PTSD Afflicts The Populace (August 28, 2006).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Imagine . . . using your turn signals

Forget world peace.  Visualize using your turn signals 

I’m not a mind reader.  Use your turn signal!

Happy Equinox

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“Recurring Revenue”:  Inserting A Tentacle Into Every Pocket (August 29, 2022)

Posted in Capitalism, Our Future? on August 29, 2022 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “The word for our time.”

J          “It is a four letter word.”

. . .

K          “The business plan is to insert every tentacle into every pocket forever.”

J          “Remote start for a car strikes me as an acceptable bourgeois indulgence, but for the auto companies to demand a monthly charge for the service is underhanded and over the top.  Imagine if the credit card company botched the person’s payment for the recurring monthly power window fee and also the recurring monthly door lock fee.  A driver may be imprisoned in the vehicle.”

K          “Remember the song ‘M.T.A.’ performed by the Kingston Trio that told the tale of a rider on the MTA who did not have an extra nickel to pay the fare and was condemned to continue riding the subway in perpetuity.  Poor Chuck’s wife had to toss his lunch to him through the window.”

J          “Imagine flying down the highway and the red light erupts to inform the driver that the fee for brake service is in arrears and the braking system no longer functions.”

. . .

K          “In the early days of the Internet, those who mined and secured general internet addresses made a small fortune.  For instance, the person who first mined and secured www.pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.com made a tidy sum selling it.  Now websites are leased with the original holder retaining ownership and charging monthly rent.  It is legal and it is ethical, yet it is reflective of a desire to keep a tentacle in every pocket.  The lessee could develop the site as part of a brand and then lose the site for failure to make a monthly payment.”    

J          “Will the public resist?”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Brake service monthly fee in arrears

Will we ever return?

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“Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015)” Seven Years Later (January 10, 2022)

Posted in Our Future?, Privacy, Society on January 10, 2022 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Seven years ago, the threat seemed distant and curious and academic.”

J          “And now it is close and disturbing and real.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at “Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015).”]

Bumper stickers of the week:

We moved a few books around.  Travel is now in the Fantasy Section.  Sci-Fi is in Current Events.  Epidemiology is in Self-Help.

There are few things more challenging in this life than encouraging another person to think independently.

MLK Day

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TeeVee, The Fondle Slab And L’Internet (May 17, 2021)

Posted in Fondle Slab, Internet, Our Future?, Society, Television on May 17, 2021 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Last time I ventured a guess, I concluded that I watch about 30 hours of traditional television a year.  Some of the viewing is logged under ‘social science research’ rather than ‘entertainment’ or ‘educational’ activities.  You will not be surprised to be reminded that I still have no television cable service.”

J          “About 50 hours, give or take about 50 hours.  Or a little more or less.  Some of our watching is hybrid television.  The only boob tube in the house is ensconced in the corner in the basement near other things in storage.”

. . .

K          “Now the amount of time I am enslaved by the fondle slab is another story.  A daily nightmare really.  Too much viewing.  Je suis addicted.”

J          “You may cut the cord, but we all are tethered by the signal.  If I could do it, I would do away with the Internet entirely including all the positive avenues and opportunities it has created.  Eliminate.  The.  Internet.  Period.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at ““Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015)” Revisited:  The “Fondle Slab” Enslaves Us All (January 28, 2019)”.]

Bumper sticker of the week:

If you are not paying for the product, you are the prey

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Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Boycott Series, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Crime/Punishment, Cyberactivities, First Amendment, Freedom / Liberty, Gold, Guns, Our Future?, Plastic, Pogo Plight, Police, Privacy, Silver, Society, Technology, Terrorism on January 12, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

X          “Failure to present The Card, even when there is no cause or provocation, will result in immediate incarceration and summary disposition.  If The Card is not physically maintained within a fathom of The Chip, The Chip will transmit a warning signal to Headquarters and trigger an unwelcome visit.”

Z          “I hear you.  Coming to a country near you.  Everyone is now familiar with a credit, a debit or an EBT card, so the transition will be unnoticed and unchallenged.  All movement, travel, purchases and sales will be monitored at all times by The Chip implanted at birth without permission.  Cash will be non-existent and free movement only a memory.  A few rebels may barter surreptitiously, yet bartering will be more than a mere failure to report income and will also result in immediate summary disposition.  Possession of any precious metals such as Fe, Pb, Au or Ag will be strictly prohibited and swiftly prosecuted.”  

X          “Plastic cards have encouraged excessive over-consumption to date, yet they could also be used to ration scarce resources in the future.  Market the idea to the public with unrelenting fear.  ‘We’ need to adopt the system to protect us from The Terrorists.” 

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact.

Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s political and economic fact.

Are your papers in order?  Is your plastic in order?

When the big boys make a run on the bank and demand a repatriation of their gold, should the little guys make a run on the bank and demand a return of their fiat dollars?

Nous sommes Charlie?  Is the concern freedom of expression for all or only for some?

Boycott TurboTax:  See Internet

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