Slaves to the Machine? Kraftwerk, Metropolis and Fritz Lang

Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked…

Slaves to the Machine? Kraftwerk, Metropolis and Fritz Lang

Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.
George Orwell

As we move back into a more normal world of conferences and engagement, I will be giving a few invited talks, including two in London. And, don’t worry that I’m destroying a bit of the planet with my travels; I have already offset any carbon, and for my talks in Glasgow and Edinburgh, I will be travelling by train and bus. My first is at the Borderless Cyber conference at one of my favourite places to visit: the Egham Campus of Royal Holloway, University of London [here]:

And, so, I look back on my presentations from the past; it is Kraftwerk, Metropolis and Fritz Lang that have played an important part in illustrating our increasing worship of The Internet. Why? Because, to me, Metropolis depicts the rise of the machine and where people worshipped it, and became slaves:

And, this is the world that faces us now, but rather than the mechanical machine, we are worshipping a software version of it. It is The Internet, and we are becoming its slaves. The rise of AI and machine learning will only accelerate this.

And, so, DigitExpo 2019, I stood on the stage for over five minutes in silence and used Fritz Lang’s movie to paint a picture of a bleak future:

And, along with the risks of the Internet, we’ve been demo’ing the poor security within IoT devices, and we kinda of shocked the audience at a CENSIS talk with the live hacking of toys, kettles and pet feeders (and with the help of Rammstein, of course):

Overall, I love technology, but this amazing thing we have created is flawed. It is poorly designed at its core and is almost completely untrustworthy in what it does. It is a Mini Metro with the skin of a Rolls-Royce.

Conclusions

A slave to the machine? The rise of Big Brother? You decide. But, don’t tell me that I didn’t warn you!

Watch out for our forthcoming public engagement talks, and be a bit scared!