Technology vs. Covid-19: Threat Assessment

Not only does the coronavirus pandemic threaten all the lives and livelihoods of billions, but it could also pave the way for global tech giants to collect increasingly significant amounts of data from humanity.

That was one of the stark scenarios taken from the Athens Democracy Forum, an annual gathering of business leaders, thinkers, and activists held in partnership with the help of New York City circumstances.

This year’s conference on global politics was a hybrid, with some physically current speakers in Greece. Still, others remotely participated in streaming sessions that drew thousands of audiences due to viruses and crowd-related travel restrictions.

The main predictor of the event’s ruin was Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli historian and best-selling author. Sitting on the roof of a complex in Athens with their backs to the Parthenon, the icon of Athenian democracy, they exchanged with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

“My biggest fear is the fact that when people look back at 40 or 50 years after the Covid crisis, they will not remember the masks, they will not take the virus into account: they will remember that this was the moment when surveillance really He took care of himself. This was the full time that democracy failed and authoritarian regimes ended, “warned Mr. Harari. “It is still in our ability to prevent this from happening, but that is the main fear.”

“There really is a lot of talk about hacking computers, smartphones and bank accounts, however the revolution that you are living for is really great is the emerging ability to hack people,” he added. You have enough computing power, and you can hack into that person “and” completely manipulate them. “If you have enough data on someone and,”

Microsoft’s chairman, who was also contained in Athens, and whose company was found guilty two decades ago of violating US antitrust law, yet now enjoys a kinder image than rivals like Bing, Facebook. and Apple, seen by some as quasi-monopolies that often infringe on people’s privacy in their push against technology, Harari found an unexpected ally: Brad Smith.

Democracy “is in a more precarious state today. I think technology is one of the reasons,” Mr. Smith told the forum of what it…