January 9, 2026
As is usually the case with technological advancement, the advances come first and then the problems of use are exposed and then comes the public commentary and then eventually, attempts to create limiting legislation.
Which inevitably founder and flop at the huge edifice of the Bill of Rights. And so not a lot happens.
As a result, we much each be vigilant in how we use technology, and most especially, how huge technology enterprises will now attempt to get into our brains to presumably sell Tide Dishwashing soap or steer us to a restaurant nearby. I mean up to now; you’d screw around on the Internet and something from Google or whomever would send you advertising. Google “what do you do for toe pain” and I can pretty much guarantee you’d get 1,253 advertisements for ointments or whatever. You get it and experience it all the time.
But it’s going to be different now and the differences coming are causing me to examine closely what unplugging I can do. I could write a book on each of these below, so I’m just scratching the surface. But in that, hoping to increase your awareness, help people be more alert.
Robots Entering the Home
We have decided that we can continue to use our old-fashioned dishwasher, we can do without a robot clearing the dishes. We can do without a robot folding clothes or sweeping the floor or whatever. Because those robots will then be watching and listening to everything going on in our home and thus, create a complete, total invasion of privacy. Which information goes to a corporation interested in manipulating us to do things it wants us to do to make a profit.
Even as they most solemnly swear, they are simply trying to help humanity with something called “an enhanced consumer experience.” They make hundreds of billions in profits, but never, ever allow the word ‘profit’ into their PR scramble and pronouncements. Its almost as though they find the profit the cascades down kind of an “Oops! We had no idea!” serendipity.
Digital Interfaces That Pick-Up Brain and Nerve Signals
Musk’s Neuralink is working on implantable devices, wired right into your brain. Meta’s wristband reads nerve signals in your wrists and sends them to your virtual reality headset. Where else will they be sent? Sam Altman’s neurolink start-up, Merge Labs uses ultrasound to read your brain activity.
Here is your chilling summation: “You can only do so much with things attached to your wrist or things looking at your eyes. You need access to the mind and what’s actually happening in the mind.” Cognixion CEO Andreas Forsland
We’ve been warned.
AI scams will proliferate with incredibly sophisticated renderings
Deepfake websites, mimicking family members, emails designed to capture passwords, AI hiding bad actors inserting malicious instructions to encourage you to their websites for a financial working over. An almost unlimited menu of bad stuff to entrap us all.
Perversion of mental health AI assistance
There is justifiable hope that AI can help people with mental health issues via chats and so forth. But as we’ve seen it can inadvertently cause suicide or similar bad outcomes. It will get better, AI will be able to eventually steer people away from that, but if you are chatting with an AI bot about your deepest thoughts and fears, you have put yourself in a vulnerable position. If someone figures out how to turn that on you, I’m not even sure you’d know it was happening to you.
Kim Kardashian has personalized her AI bot and given it a name, and a gender and called it her “frenemy.”
Using AI to replace your doctor
I think this is mostly inevitable. You chat in with your symptoms and Doctor AI prescribes. And then, of course, there will be links to purchase stuff. Today, we see channel stuffing from the pharma companies, imagine what can happen if a profit-making enterprise gets to direct your health purchases. Amazon is already in that business with their One Medical service.
I can think of so many bad things that can and will happen with all of this, I’m sure you can come up with your own list.
Autonomous Vehicles
I related a few weeks ago about our experience using Waymo in San Francisco. It was fine. But now, you have to wonder what is done with your travel information (what destinations you ask for), whether or not some thing or some one will be listening to your conversation in the car. I mean, I think you go silent, turn off your phone and take the ride in complete passive mode.
The ever-present telescreens monitor citizens’ every move and word, creating a climate where people police their own thoughts out of fear. The slogan “Big Brother is watching you” reinforces this psychological pressure.
George Orwell wrote the novel 1984 in 1948. And here we are. Between Orwell’s dystopian vision of the autocracy of the Party, and Ray Kurzweil’s view of the coming Singularity (the melding together of human and machine into a hybrid creature), we are well on our way toward that future.
This need not be a bad thing. If we are each vigilant in how we use technology, if we are each thinking hard about whether we truly need some technology or website we can limit the negative possibilities for ourselves and our families.
As a simple thing…Setting aside the infirm who will find a home robot a clear benefit…Do the rest of us need something that will help us sit on the couch and not move by fetching a glass of beer for us? And while we’re sitting there, we are on our Pads or Phones, searching for answers to our heart condition or our lack of physical stamina.
We have been making a conscious effort to get rid of technology, not embrace more of it. Getting rid of websites (even the most innocent looking ones track your movement and sell that information), getting rid of subscriptions (they gather and report what you click on), just generally “going dark” as much as possible.
You can’t eliminate tech…even our swimming pool heater has to be run from an app, but you can limit it and can do so quite severely. Just a simple thing, I use Duck Duck Go for search, I use Mozilla VPN to hide my presence on the Internet, I use Claude AI because it has IMO, the most robust privacy constraints to protect my chats. All are free, all do a great job of giving me some measure of privacy.
As Rylie and I navigated the website construction and set-up, I would be hard pressed to list all the companies and their “things” that wanted our subscriber information for the purpose basically of selling the information. We specifically rejected all of that, we don’t sell your name, show your name, do anything to confirm your identity or presence on our website. But I am going to bet a fine dinner, that while we may not be unique in that, Working Profit is most definitely part of a very small number of websites who treat their subscribers that way.
Thoughts, questions, or reflections? I’d love to hear them. You can reach me anytime at anthony@workingprofit.com
