Month: November 2018

A patent is a form of intellectual property given to the owner and creator of an invention which prohibits others from making, selling, using and importing this invention for a prolonged period of time.  Generally, this period of time is 20 years, but it could be longer.  In terms of the ethical and moral reasons for granting patents, it prohibits an unethical individual from attempting to steal another person’s invention for their own profit.  Because patents do not allow someone other than the patent holder to sell the invention, without the patent holder’s discretion, the only person that can profit off of this invention is the patent holder.  This also looks at one of the economic consequences of a patent.  Due to the patent’s restrictive nature, only a patent holder can benefit economically from their invention, which may deter innovation with regards to technology using this patented invention.

In my opinion, I believe that patents are necessary and should definitely be granted, but I do understand the counter argument for them.  I believe that we should recognize the invention of a person or group of people and grant them a patent on their invention since they were the sole proprietors of said invention.  Not doing so seems wrong to me which is why I believe that patents should be granted.  I do understand that issuing these patents to restrict the use of the invention to the patent holder will hinder innovation and stop this line of invention at the patented product, however, I feel that there are much more inventions to be created beyond the patented inventions right now.  Because of this, entrepreneurs will look at this and deduce that, if they can come up with a useful, practical invention that is not already patented, they can profit from it.  And due to the fact that they hold the patent and are the sole person able to sell it, use it and make it, they would be reaping all of the benefits from their product.  That fact, I believe, will spur innovation into realms we currently do not have any patented products in.

Where I believe that patent law gets tricky is on individual pieces of software.  The purpose of software is for it to be deployed to many people so that it can make a process more efficient and easier to do.  However, the definition of patents state that the patent holder must be the only person to use the invention, or else it is a breach of patent law.  This presents a contradiction, one which I am not sure how to fix.

With regards to “patent trolls” I believe that this does not show that the patent system is broken, but that there is room for improvement to restrict these unethical people from doing just that.  According to the readings, a patent troll is someone who uses patents as “legal weapons” and buys up patents from failing companies in order to attempt to sue a booming company for patent infringement. This is clearly wrong and needs to be addressed by the patent system.

Automation is greatly impacting employment in the United States and abroad.  According to the readings, we are seeing automation impact how jobs are completed and the sheer numbers of jobs available in many regions of the country.  One of the most publicized areas affected by this implementation of automation is the Rust Belt and jobs in manufacturing.  While trade and outsourcing have also been seen as potential reasons that these areas are seeing a dip in numbers, a recent study has shown that up to 87% of the jobs lost in manufacturing are due to automation and computing taking over jobs previously manned by human beings.  However, another recent study shows that the areas that may be most affected by automation in the long run are food preparation, office and administrative support, and sales.  The regions of the country that could be most affected by this are Las Vegas, San Bernardino, El Paso, Orlando and Louisville.

In terms of the economic impact of this automation sweeping across the nation, there are both positives and negatives.  In terms of positives, we will see more profitable companies as automation will be a one time charge and less expensive than manpower in the long run.  As we have seen recently, companies have been giving out larger bonuses to their employees in the wake of tax breaks and increasing profit from automation.  However, the negatives are obvious.  More automation will lead to more unemployment in these areas since automation will make manpower previously holding these positions redundant.  In terms of the political impact, we have already seen that.  In the previous election, President Trump reached out to people in this area to try and swing states, especially those in the Rust Belt.  President Trump reached out to these people to make sure they were not going to be forgotten and left behind, even though automation has been sweeping across the region.

With regards to whether or not I am comfortable with artificial intelligence performing more human tasks, I would say that I am, but only up to a certain point.  While I do think that artificial intelligence can be used in certain situations, we need to draw a line and still have a need for humans to do work in the working place.  In places like finance, home improvement, and driving, artificial intelligence can be and maybe should be used as it will make companies and processes more efficient.  However, in the areas given, such as caregiving, creating artistic works, and making life or death decisions in the health industry, I believe that the “human touch” should be present.  In my opinion, these are not places that this efficiency that automation and artificial intelligence offers are needed.  In caregiving, especially with infants, the human touch that is given by having humans take care of infants is needed as they will learn from their caregivers.  In creating artistic works, while artificial intelligence can learn how to do this, it will never be able to be creative and creativity is what is needed most in this field.  And for making life or death decisions in the health industry, we will also need a human that has spent their entire life dedicated towards the health industry should be making this decision and not a piece of artificial intelligence coded up by someone who will not have that same experience.

The term “fake news” can be described as news that is swayed or biased by some type of motives, which most recently has been politically, to fit some type of narrative.  We have seen a lot of recent “fake news” with regards to politicians on both sides of the aisle and has been omnipresent ever since President Trump donned the term during his campaign for the 2016 presidency.  In the recent years and months, we have seen a deluge of this so-called “fake news” with many in the media reporting the news that they want to hear or somehow swinging the news to fit the narrative that their political party wants to portray.  Personally, I find this both annoying and potentially dangerous going forward.  I find it annoying because, when I look at news, I want to be able to trust the news that I am reading and don’t want to have to question whether or not the news being reported is actually factual or whether or not it is being skewed or swayed to fit some sort of narrative.  I also see it as potentially dangerous as there could be no end in sight for this new “fake news” deluge.  As of right now, we are mostly looking at “fake news” in the political space, but there is the potential that it could spread to other spaces and make much more of an impact in the world.  And even if it were to stay in the political space, it could greatly sway the general public’s point of view of a candidate.

 

Speaking of that, we have already seen that play out on a lower scale in the 2016 Presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.  In the lead up to this election, news displayed on sites such as Facebook was completely polarized.  Those that were classified by Facebook as liberal, were only shown news that Facebook thought fit their political views and the same went for those that Facebook classified as conservative.  Because of this, people thought that the news that the other political party was reporting was “fake news” and shouldn’t be trusted at all.  This only played into the new reality that our country is becoming more politically polarized than ever and bipartisan thinking and cooperation in our government becoming increasingly more difficult.  One large piece of news that seemed to have an impact on the 2016 election was the report that Russian hacking largely swayed the election in the favor of now President Trump.  For liberals, this was the reason why Hillary Clinton lost and for conservatives, this was “fake news” spread by the left in the wake of Clinton’s defeat.  In reality, this is somewhere in the middle and, as shown by an article I had read found here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-did-russian-interference-affect-the-2016-election/,  it was shown that this Russian hacking most likely had no measurable effect on the 2016 election.  This piece of news and others like it is why I believe that we should be trying to “snuff out” this “fake news” because it can lead to increasing polarization in politics and can greatly impact the way people think about the world.