Data After Your Death & The Neural Future of The Internet with Jag Sharma, Ben Wiggins & Jen Campbell - Episode 18
What happens to your data when you die?
Data rights are already a touchy subject in the living world, so what muddy waters might the prospect of a digital afterlife present to us?
In this week’s episode of Disconnected, we’ve got a huge range of topics from the latest in tech to discuss, from investors being fleeced of their bitcoin and linking our brains to social media, through to a Meta-organised political campaign and the latest Wordle offshoot.
This episode of Disconnected covers:
What happens to your data after you die
Neural technology, and how it could shape how we connect with the web
Netflix’s latest thrilling documentary on bitcoin theft
Bytedance’s questionable use of data scraped from other platforms
The new Wordle spinoff catching our eyes (and ears), Heardle
Episode Highlights:
“I read the headline and thought this is it, Instagram’s finally going back to its roots and we're going to see content that we want to see. But then you dig a little bit deeper, and actually, the home feed isn't going anywhere.” - 2:00 - Jen Campbell
“Are we ready for the next stage of social media? Are we ready for the next stage of the Internet where we're just basically connected completely through either our AR glasses, or hooked up via our brain or our arms?” - 9:10 - Jag Sharma
“I guess neural technology will see voice technology becoming null and void, right? It feels like we're leaping beyond voice because then what's the point in having voice activated devices?” - 12:45 - Ben Wiggins
“I guess I wouldn't care because I'd be dead, but I would still find it a bit weird opening up all this data, all these memories, these texts & documents to someone. It feels quite invasive, even though I would be gone and wouldn't care. But I guess it's the responsible thing to do. Like it's like leaving this earth and passing stuff over.” - 17:25 - Ben Wiggins
“It's obvious that Bytedance felt threatened by these other platforms and wanted to show that Flipagram had some gravitas about it. Then we fast forward a few years and it's interesting how the tables are turned, because I’ve got a story on Meta doing something bad like this.” - 28:35 - Jag Sharma
“At the end of the day, what you should be doing is positive reinforcement of something you believe in, not picking on competitors. If it's true, then it’s fine to highlight it, but all that needed was a press release. It didn't need a whole campaign behind it to get it out into the press, because it would have been a big enough story anyway.” - 31:35 - Jen Campbell
“A group of internet ninjas investigated what happened and how they can get their money back. Here’s the beauty of the blockchain; they discovered that Cotton was taking assets out of his own platform, and trading them on other crypto exchanges. He’s basically a really bad investor who lost a lot of money. Then when you dive a bit deeper, it turns out that both he and the other guy who founded QuadrigaCX had run a scam before with one of them ending up in jail.” - 35:25 - Ben Wiggins
Links & references:
Ben Wiggins:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bewiggins/
Jen Campbell:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-m-campbell/
Jag Sharma: