In the episode of Black Mirror season 3 called Nosedive, I got a glimpse of what life would look like if people were held to a rating system. People often come across on social media as if everything is perfect in their life and you typically don’t see the real them. I believe social media also leads to less meaningful in person relationships in a person’s life. Therefore, I choose to not be on any form of social media but also because I’m just not a huge fan.
In Nosedive people are giving a rating between 1 and 5 based on your interactions. This obviously makes some people want to live like they do on social media, so they come across as awesome and get 5-star ratings. People with scores over 4 are looked upon favorably and are even eligible for perks that others aren’t.
I was very interested in this episode and thought something like this could be possible in the future. People are increasingly becoming obsessed with gamified systems that they can see immediate gratification from. If restaurants, schools, drug stores and everything else is held to a rating why not humans? The only issue is who would represent themselves truthfully. Everyone would be acting fake 24/7 and anxiety and depression would likely be through the roof.
It was especially interesting when the main character saw what her life could look like if her rating was high enough and she was able to get the apartment she wanted. It totally took over her life and she became obsessed with hitting the star mark.

Technology and Ethics are two crucial aspects of the engineering world. They dictate how we do things, solve problems, relate to each other and communicate.
Obviously, we are becoming more dependent on technology in our lives and work environments. As Rick Smolan said, “Every time there’s a new tool, whether it’s Internet or cell phones or anything else, all these things can be used for good and evil. Technology is neutral; it depends on how it’s used.” (Brainy Quote) Engineering is no different in this respect. We use tech to solve calculations, generate models for our buildings and communicate with our colleagues. We can also become too dependent on it to some extent. It would be virtually impossible to go a day with out using tech in some fashion.
Likewise, ethics are an essential bedrock of any industry or business. Ethics are the hidden guideline for how we coexist and work together in a quality manner. With out ethics much of every industry would be corrupt and impossible to navigate fairly. Bidding jobs, contracts, safety, and many more engineering-based core principles would be at jeopardy with out ethics.
Is there a parallel between ethics and tech in the work space? I believe technology some what negatively effects ethics. The more we use tech the less we work together to form solid relationships from what trust is built. This allows for less ethics overall since there are less face to face interactions. Ethics are supposed to be woven into our industries naturally, but it is difficult to uphold those ethics when we spend less and less time together.

Ex Machina is a crazy, awesome, creepy, wonderful movie. It is intense from the get-go and you never really know where the movie is going, until the final seen. This is one of my favorite movies ever, not only because of the suspense but also the acting, writing and plot are all equally amazing.
The idea that machines/robots could be almost impossible to detect through conversation is scary. During the Turing test in Ex Machina, Ava is virtually impossible to detect robotic behavior through her answers. Caleb goes as far to eventually even fall in love with Ava as she manipulates the narrative. If we couldn’t tell the difference between AI and humans, it raises many questions in my mind. How would we treat them? Would there be a different set of laws for them? Would our programming prevail, or would they follow their own narrative?
I was even caught taking the side of Ava on many occasions when watching the film and understood why Caleb was so torn. She seemed so genuine in her feelings and you wanted to help her as Caleb did. It wasn’t until she literally locked Caleb in and left that I realized she played everyone like a fiddle. I felt betrayed when she exited the home at the end locking everyone in and leaving the chaos and destruction behind. If so many emotions could be sparked by watching the film, what if we or I was put in a real-life situation with Ava? Would the outcome be different? It would be difficult to remind myself constantly that she was a robot and that she doesn’t have real emotions. It would be difficult to treat someone so like a human like something else. Maybe one day we will have to be faced with the contradictions with the way technology is headed.