Our world is a changing place. And it’s moving faster than anyone could’ve ever imagined, particularly since the advent of computers, the internet and now artificial intelligence.
I recall sitting down perhaps 30 years ago with one of my key advisers in the business. He was warning me that changes were about to come along that could either destroy our business or make us stronger. I thought he was nuts.
He explained that this thing called the web had opened to the public in 1991 and was beginning to be available for general use. That was in 1994, when websites for everyday use started to become available.
Our business at the time was consulting based. We also published bidding opportunities from both the government and the private sector. The fastest and best way to collect this information was to contract with the sources and then transport the information by fax or overnight-courier. Then, after we coded and sorted the information, we would again send it to our customers the fastest and best way, which at the time was fax and overnight-courier.
Sooner than we could imagine, information was flying at electronic speeds. Faxing died. Overnight-courier became too slow. All of a sudden, we had to use a new fangled method called email. It saved everyone a bunch of money, got information to our clients much faster and revolutionized our business.
To our chagrin, lightning struck again and again. No sooner would we establish new methodologies than another change would pop up. We migrated from an operations orientation to software orientation to systems based to… well, you get the idea. Today our computer servers pull the information directly from our sources’ computer servers, then our computers code and sort the information and post it on a client accessible web server so that clients can instantaneously access it along with related files and a wealth of support information. What took days and days, now takes seconds.
And this ability to near instantly access a wide berth of information has opened new business opportunities. What had been software, resident on our computers and those of our clients, is now a totally different ballgame, housed and accessed on what is known as the cloud.
My adviser was correct. The world was changing. Even he did not realize just how fast that publicly available internet would change everything. As a business, we have evolved to love it.
Of course as smart as we all think we are with these new electronic trinkets, it is nothing compared to where we are going. Some of that will be good — as in medicine, new inventions, manufacturing, supply chain, analytics, improving the human condition and so much more. But some will not be so good — as in politics.
We are already seeing artificial intelligence being used to make up fake and misleading ads that put words in the mouths of others. I have seen numerous ads and social media posts showing President Joe Biden saying horrible things. Of course, he never said any of these things. But opponents relish in this kind of lying.
The problem — and danger — is that the majority of us do not know what to believe. We do not know what is true and what is an out and out lie. Who do we believe? How do we vote? How do we protect ourselves from this deluge of misinformation and lies?
Many of those with big money don’t want to pay taxes, so they make political donations to those willing to pull the wool over our eyes. Those hating other races, sexual orientations, immigration status, religious beliefs — you know, hating people who are different — sometimes accept the idea that all is fair in love and war. If powerful tools to affect public opinion and to influence how you and I vote are available, lies or not, why not use them?
The fact is that Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Biden all know this. It was so simple years ago when candidates stood before the American people and made their cases. Sometimes we voted for Republicans and sometimes we voted for Democrats. Then in the next election cycle we repeated all of this again.
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Today, that thinking is as old fashioned as my fax machines. Now all of that is too slow, with many times more information to digest, and all riddled with what can be a bunch of lies, with our country’s future in the balance.
My adviser 30 years ago only had an inkling of what was coming. He could not project the future, anymore than I can. The only solution to the illicit use of technology for political purposes is to do all we can to determine who is truthful and who is trying to manipulate us. Then use that to cut out the misinformation from those we cannot trust.
I wish things were not getting so ugly and confusing.
Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, Shippensburg University Trustee, and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. The firm provides enterprise-level cloud-software for communicating, specifying, approving, procuring, producing, reporting and activities necessary to obtaining direct mail, packaging, promo, marketing and all other printing. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at[email protected].
