The Juicero was seriously a major point in my personal ideological journey. Around 2013, I was still very convinced that Silicon Valley (and VC-backed startups in general) were a source of innovation that could do a lot of good in the world. I was starting to question that a little bit because I had noticed that every new startup was described as “like Uber for <other thing>,” but I still largely believed that most SV startups were innovative and improving people’s lives, or at least had the potential to do so.
And then the freaking Juicero came along, and I was like, “What the removed? Do these people actually have no idea what they’re doing? Oh my god, they don’t.”
Look, I’m not saying that if the Juicero didn’t exist, that I would be some Elon Musk fanboy right now. Something else probably would have woken me up instead.
But in this timeline, in this current universe we are in, the Juicero made me see things differently. No one wants to believe that they were changed by the Juicero… but I was. And I… I… I don’t know how I feel about that…
Honestly, this is something that I hadn’t actually considered before. I’m almost embarrassed, since I like to think of myself as someone who is always thinking about how my data can be misused, haha.
It’s not just about data that can currently be used unethically; there’s also the fact that someone may figure out a way in the future to use today’s data unethically. This is definitely true with something like your DNA, which is so complex that there are infinite things to learn from it. But it can be true of more simple things, too. There’s no way to predict what someone will be able to extrapolate from seemingly harmless information today.