If we do not control the technology we rely on, another individual will — and we would in contrast to the implications.

When people fail to manipulate their actions, the law might step in. When people fail to govern their technology, code might intercede. 

It’s happening already. Google is definitely on its strategy to developing self-driving cars. Definitely automated cars will save lives, fuel, and time because, let’s accept it, we’re terrible drivers usually. Normally you are an excellent driver, but statistically speaking, your average lifetime risk of dying in a car accident involves something like 1 in 84. Even when you drive flawlessly, another person won’t. You or someone you recognize could suffer for that. Expect that Google will do better, if we’re willing to give up control.

It looks like we shall. Technology has become so complicated and robust that a lot of people prefer ease of use or the promise of security, real or not, over control. Apple has won a large following by limiting control of its mobile devices for the sake of convenience and consumer protection. It would be your iPhone, but Apple decides what software you may run on it.

[Don’t let Google take over — check your privacy settings. Read 5 Google Opt-Out Settings To test.]

(Developers in good standing, after all, can run anything they need on their iPhones, but they can not distribute the software through Apple channels without approval, unless they go rogue and jailbreak their phones.)

Often, technological control is exercised to give protection to us from ourselves: Many websites use programming code to coerce users into selecting strong passwords, because we won’t be trusted to select wisely. But technological control can be a threat to business interests: Google last year removed AdBlock Plus from Google Play, despite the needs of Android users.

How much control should we surrender? Will we need Google, for instance, to disable our phones for us? a contemporary Google patent application, “System and Method for Controlling Mobile Device Operation,” contemplates that scenario. It describes research to assist in “correcting occasional human error” when phones are left in a state that isn’t situationally appropriate. The patent application describes the potential for “controlling and/or recommending changes to mobile devices located in opera houses, movie theatres, or other similar locales wherein silence is inspired (e.g., placing the mobile devices in mute or vibrate to play down distractions).”

Code-driven manners correction is usually a godsend — or an intrusion, if implemented as an enforced requirement as opposed to as a request. We’d welcome the muting of phone-happy moviegoers, but we’d hate to overlook a decision from a friend within the emergency room. Crafting a suitable use policy for technology isn’t simple, as an issue of code or law.

The European Commission is thinking about whether to require cars to be fitted with speed-limiting devices. Would you welcome a wise car (or should it’s called a cautious car?) that applies the brakes at just over 115 kph (71 mph)? What in case your insurance company required it? Will we drive our machines or do they drive us?

More and more, it could actually be the latter, except where guns are concerned. Do as you’ll along with your glock. The second one Amendment guarantees the fitting to bear arms within the US. What would a right to unfettered computing be like? It’d be an open-source world.

Reality falls wanting that. We’re moving from a time where reading had a language requirement to a time where reading has both a language and a tool requirement. Sorry, your iBook doesn’t work along with your Kindle. Where technology is anxious, code is law. Devices don’t have any choice but to obey, unless prevented from doing so by errors. People are likely to accept the boundaries in their devices.

Hackers are the exception. That’s why hackers — skilled programmers, for the main part — are regarded with suspicion. They could rewrite the law of code to their very own advantage, bypassing barriers that may block the fewer technically savvy and creating new avenues of action and opportunity. Frankly, we must always all aspire to be hackers, within the best sense of the word.

Of course, code is not law. It functions as a type of law, but in the operating system as opposed to the legal system. Code may very well be an try to implement the law or to enforce contractual rules. But what the law allows and what code allows is probably not an analogous things.

To complicate matters, laws are seldom crafted with the care of code. Once they govern technology, they generally tend to fall short, to be overbroad, to be so vague as to criminalize everything, or to empower zealous prosecutors an excessive amount of. The pc Fraud and Abuse Act involves mind here.

The ability and the appropriate to manage the technology that already governs us matters greater than ever because our devices see much more of our lives than ever. When the NSA is in a position to track people using Google advertising cookies, when dozens of ad companies know more about us than our friends, it’s clear that we’ve lost control.

If we will turn control over to our machines, we have to ensure that we have now a say in crafting the terms of our surrender. But really we should always strive to maintain as much control as we will manage, so long as we are not endangering others.

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Thomas Claburn have been writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications akin to New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and tv, having earned a not particularly useful … View Full Bio

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