Let's Talk About TikTok, Part 2

Earlier this year, I posted about TikTok, but it was really just a post about the Internet, privacy, and security. This week, Pew Research Center published a report about similar topics: What Americans Know About AI, Cybersecurity, and Big Tech. To find out what they knew, the Center surveyed 5,101 U.S. adults and asked them 9 main multiple-choice questions:

1. As of April 2023, which of the following companies did Elon Musk run?
2. If a website uses cookies, it means the site can . . .
3. What is a "deepfake?"
4. In 2021, Facebook changed it's name to . . .
5. Which of the following passwords is the most secure?
6. How do large language models, such as ChatGPT, come up with answers to questions users submit?
7. Some websites and online services use a security process known as two-step or two-factor authentication. Which of the following images is an example of two-factor authentication?
8. Websites in the United States are prohibited from collecting data online from children under what age without a parent's consent?
9. Does the United States have a national privacy law that sets common standards for what companies can do with all data their products and services collect?

Among the findings, these stood out to me:

• Only 4% of respondents were able to answer all 9 questions correctly. The median answered only 5 correctly.
• Less than half of the respondents correctly identified an example of two-factor authentication from a series of pictures.
• Not a lot of respondents know much about artificial intelligence. Only 42% know what a deepfake is, and only 32% understand how ChatGPT works.
• Not a lot of respondents know much about federal privacy laws. Less than a quarter answered Questions 8 and 9 correctly.

With so much of our lives online, it's unsettling to see these results. I wonder, too, how policymakers would fare on such a survey––my guess is they'd do worse than the general public. And yet here we are in a world where Montana is the first of probably several states to ban an app. (See Montana Becomes the First State to Ban TikTok.)

What about you? Where do you think you'd fall? Take the quiz here: Test Your Knowledge of Digital Topics.

Things I'm thankful for: curiosity and reading and journalists

Just Some Thoughts about Free Will

Even though "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" recently came to theaters, I'm not going to write about them. I'm going to write about The Adjustment Bureau, which came out in 2009. I'd been thinking about it lately and decided to watch it again last night.

Well, I liked it as much now as I did the first time I saw it. I particularly liked the last scene, in which Matt Damon and Emily Blunt's characters exercise free will to be together. When talking to a member of The Adjustment Bureau, Matt Damon's character says, "Is this some sort of test?" The member responds:

In a way. It's all a test––for everybody, even the members of The Adjustment Bureau. Most people live life on the path we set for them––too afraid to explore any other. But once in a while, people like you come along who knock down all the obstacles we put in your way––people who realize free will is a gift you'll never know how to use until you fight for it. I think that's the Chairman's real plan––that maybe one day, we won't write the plan, you will.

I suppose I harp on about free will quite a bit,* but it's my favorite part about life––my favorite gift, as the Adjustment Bureau member put it. It's also a major part of Latter-day Saint theology. If we used "The Adjustment Bureau" as a metaphor for Christianity, Mormons would say that the Chairman is God, and his gift to us is free will. More importantly, we would tell you that free will is worth fighting for. It's literally the point of our bodily existence.

Regarding Mormons––and Christians in general––however, I have a pretty big bone to pick. Time and time again, they say people should pray to know God's will. They say they want to make the Right choice, or the choice God would have them make. They say, "This is what God wanted" or "This is part of God's plan for me." It's maddening because so often, there is no Right choice; there is no predetermined plan that God has laid out for each of us; and God largely stays out of our way, so we can exercise free will. What is the point in having free will, if we simply wait for God to tell us what to do?

When I think of God's will, I think of the two great commandments found in the Book of Matthew: to love the Lord [...] with all thy heart and to love thy neighbor as thyself (Matthew 22:36–40). I think of the Ten Commandments, too. I think of all the ways Christ lived a good life. Those things––the two great commandments, the Ten Commandments, and Christ's example––are God's will for us. He simply wants us to live righteous lives. He does not want to make decisions for us or direct our lives to the tee. He wants us to make a myriad of decisions on our own and experience the consequences of living a mortal life––all while being kind and gentle with every living thing we come into contact with. That's it.

I love movies such as "The Adjustment Bureau" because they remind me what life is all about. They remind me that I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul (Invictus, Henley).

*See Agency Is the Very Best, Omniscience, Timing, Trust God? Not This One!, Enoch's Tears and God's Rainbow, When God Makes You Wait––Huh???.

Thing I'm thankful for: medicine