Irina MUKHINA, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, a specialist in the field of digital technologies. In this conversation, I will start from personal and professional experience. I have three children, five granddaughters, I have twenty-five years of work in the field of Western financial, stock exchange, banking and insurance technologies. I was doing a so-called client portfolio analysis, and this gave me the opportunity to see the "underside" of the big data that is collected on each client. I want to emphasize that in order to make any changes, including digitalization, education reforms are first carried out. Alas, on the territory of Russia, a reform, or rather, an anti-reform of education, has already been carried out. And many other reforms will apparently take place much more imperceptibly, because fewer and fewer people are approaching problems analytically, comprehensively, including the problem of the digital economy.
"TOMORROW". You found yourself in Canada in an era of growing political correctness. Has your family experienced this in any way? Irina MUKHINA. Yes, it is quite. In the mid-1990s, my husband and I and our two daughters (aged four and twelve) moved to Canada. I had a PhD in artificial intelligence in my hands, and my husband had a PhD in plasma physics. In the new country we had neither relatives nor acquaintances.
I had to get organized somehow. And we immediately ran into the juvenile system. When one day we left a five-year-old child at home alone, we immediately got a call. I was quite surprised, but I was seriously warned that children in such cases are taken away from the family. This was perhaps the most dissonant note compared to how we lived before the move. I remember myself at the age of seven, I calmly traveled through the whole city to a music teacher. After that, I began to observe the manifestations of juvenile justice in Canada and did it consciously, realizing that my risks were high, because we already had three children - by that time a son was born.
"TOMORROW". Did the West immediately seem to you a system of total surveillance? Irina MUKHINA. Not immediately, but my work in the analytical departments of financial corporations constantly threw up food for thought. Already 25 years ago, there were several million customers in bank portfolios. Working in the credit card department, we analyzed all transactions, that is, what this person buys, where and when, how much he pays monthly, and so on. Then, having found a specific client in the database, it was necessary to predict what other banking product this client would want to buy. This powerful tool for predicting a person's reaction to financial products, company brands, and the like was being created right before my eyes.
It was based on analytical and algorithmic work with big data. In fact, I was able to consider in detail how models are built to predict the desires and capabilities of millions of consumers. And when they talk about the knowledge economy now, I always clarify: this is the economy of complete knowledge about the client. "TOMORROW". How does such an economy work? Irina MUKHINA. I have worked on the global exchange for almost 10 years and managed to study in detail how financial assets are managed in the world, where and for what purpose investment funds invest huge amounts of money. These funds are the main players on the world stock exchange, and singles are those victims from whom profits are obviously “shorn”, although sometimes they are allowed to temporarily be in the black in order to lure the next ones.
I had no illusions about the financial structure of the Western "free market" - and quite quickly. I realized that digitalization is being implemented according to the same principle. Its main danger lies not in information technologies themselves, but in their impact on people's relationships. This is especially true for the formation of thinking in children. "TOMORROW". How does this happen? Irina MUKHINA. Everyone has already noticed that humanity is immersed in a digital matrix.
But people of my generation remember that in the past, in stores, the saleswoman looked at the price tags - how much it costs, and calculated the cost of the purchase. Then, barcodes were applied to the packages, which are read by special automatic devices at the checkouts. There were a lot of goods, and almost all of them acquired these same barcodes. Now, in fact, the same code is put on all people. That is, people become a commodity on the exchange of digital services, individuals with alienated qualities, put up for sale. This process is supported by the collection and digitization of big data about consumers. "TOMORROW".
What terms form a big data array? Irina MUKHINA. The chips in our credit cards and phones provide a wealth of information about us, from our location to our financial history. Already ten years ago it was known that if there are three large data sources, albeit without identifiers of specific individuals, for example: who, what and how much bought in a store - once; indicators of car fines - two; data from polyclinics and hospitals - three. These three data sources are unrelated, do not have a person's identification number, but they can always be glued together if desired and get a complete and information about each, that is, a barcode. Here is the collection point for personal data on "human capital" for the global digital market! "TOMORROW". Is the most radical version of digitalization currently being implemented in China? Irina MUKHINA. They introduced the so-called social rating, and in several Chinese provinces they are experimenting on residents.
Depending on the results of this rating, each person is “assigned” a level of social benefits. That is, if you behave badly from the point of view of state observers, then you may not be allowed to buy a plane ticket. And if you behave very badly, then you may not be allowed to be treated in a good hospital or will be served as the last resort. And so on. These methods have a variety of applications in the social sphere. "TOMORROW". Who needs total digitalization? Irina MUKHINA.
The fact is that many states have been privatized and have long played a less important role than transnational corporations. The five largest information technology companies in the world (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) are actively lobbying their interests in the world, including in Russia. When I come to lecture in Moscow or Novosibirsk, I see that new digital technologies are increasingly becoming a platform for setting up social processes. This is due to the interconnectedness of the world economy, which has only three types of resources: natural, financial and human, recently cynically called "human capital". We are capital from the point of view of those who exploit us. In the economy of capitalism, the exploitation of man by man has not gone anywhere, profit is formed from it, then it is distributed among private investors - shareholders of companies. Finances and natural resources have long been under the control of the globalists, but in order for the “mousetrap” to finally shut down, it remains to deal with “human capital”.
"TOMORROW". But some may believe that if they do not violate the laws, then they have nothing to fear from digital control? Irina MUKHINA. This is at least naive. Communicating on the Internet, we often do not know who is on the other side of the transaction, on the other end of the social network. And 85% of the saturation of the Internet is, in fact, pornography and trade in prohibited things. And it's very profitable. Normal people can hardly imagine that in the free market there are, for example, thousands of percent profits.
The same drugs: they are easy to grow, transport to consumers, but their prices are astronomical. "TOMORROW". Canada is one of the trailblazers in the drug legalization movement. Irina MUKHINA. Yes, we legalized marijuana in 2018, anyone can buy it, and this, of course, is degradation in the style of late Rome. In Russia, many understand the danger of moving in this direction. But there are still those who are still naive in relation to the charms of the Western world, they want to go to the West, because there is a beautiful “showcase”.
Our Toronto is modern Babylon. While living there, I worked with people of different cultures, races and countries over the years, which allowed me to see the enormous difference in cultural codes. Of course, morality is higher in Russia (on average), because we were kept behind the Iron Curtain, and Orthodox attitudes are rooted in the archetypes of our people. It is known that our brain works in two modes: defining a goal and achieving it with specific methods. And if a child knows from childhood that stealing is bad, a sin, he will subsequently try not to use his official position for personal enrichment, not to live at the expense of others, because he has a moral core. I am not calling for a return to the world of the Middle Ages, to abandon gadgets (especially since I use them myself). But I want to focus on global finance, which is shaking all ethical foundations and national traditions all over the world.
Neoliberalism is the power of the financiers. I have seen how money works against entire countries. For example, Greece, in whose bonds we invested pension funds. I watched how, after 2014, Ukrainian assets were bought up on the cheap. I have many questions about the electronic card that is being actively introduced in Russia now. A few years ago, a joint-stock company of Sberbank "Universal Electronic Card" (UEC) was created. This is a "daughter" of Sberbank, and not only.
This society made attempts to introduce this card in various directions, including in the field of education. The rush didn't work. "TOMORROW". Then they changed their name, didn't they? Irina MUKHINA. Yes, in 2018 a rebranding was carried out, and Settlement Solutions JSC appeared. It is conducting pilot experiments in schools. One of them is "Pass and Feed".
I did something similar in Canadian banks 20 years ago! This is a card that allows you to withdraw money from a client's account without entering a PIN code and without signing. That is, there is a limit on the purchase price, for example, five dollars. The client pays by applying the card, the transaction takes place instantly. This is "digital efficiency" when parents are told that their children will eat at school, and then wealthy parents are told that they themselves will be able to control the healthy nutrition of the child, and he will not have to give pocket money, and low-income ones are attracted by the fact that food on the card will be cheaper, at a discount. But the question here is not about money, but about potentially leaking personal data of the child. It is worth remembering that since the 21st century the world has entered a new stage of the technological order. Data, information have now become more valuable than finances.
This is know-how, and trade secrets, and new licenses and patents - everything that makes it possible to monetize data and make quick profits. So far, as far as I can see, the above joint-stock company is unprofitable, but it collects data from customers, of which it already has more than two million. The situation is similar in hospitals, where a digital medical file is created for admitted children. This information file about the child is, in fact, a kind of barcode. If parents, at the request of the school, sign permission to process the personal data of their children, this means that they give access to them to third parties. The school does not need these data at all, it already has enough data to teach children: what grade they are in, how old they are, what their names are, what grades they have. There is Federal Law No.
152 "On Personal Data" of a citizen. It describes what exactly is personal data and who has the right to access it. And there is a portal that for me personally looks like violating the law of the Russian Federation - "Ladoshki.deti". This is the next level - fingerprinting. That is, some pilot programs offer not even a card for your child (yes, of course, he can lose it, forget it, and so on), but read his fingerprints, palm prints. This is actually biometrics stored in the database.
"TOMORROW". You say terrible things. What should parents do? Irina MUKHINA. The family should be extremely careful in these matters and try to protect the child from such barcodes until the state creates a legislative framework in this regard. Parents should try to build good, harmonious relations with their children in order to prevent the very possibility of taking the child away from the family and destructive influence on him from the outside. If we, parents, cannot cope with such challenges, then what can we demand from other specialists and our state? If a parent imprudently signed a permission to access the child's data, then control, alas, automatically passes from the sphere of action of state institutions to commercial structures that can simply trade with this data or use it for fraudulent schemes. "TOMORROW".
The West has been doing this for a long time! Irina MUKHINA. Yes, and sometimes it comes to digital identity theft. Fraudsters can get access to a person's complete electronic file, where, in fact, everything is stored: civil, medical, financial information. This can be used to get new loans, buy real estate, finance dubious companies, or buy any kind of luxury.. The robbed person is almost destroyed, powerless to prove his innocence.
Fraudsters steal your “digital body”, “digitized footprint” (“digital footprint”, as it is called in English). And you are no longer you, but only an observer of the growth of "own" payments. And in the bank they answer you: “You took a loan of two million from us, and you must pay us back on the loan ..” A similar story happened to my boss at my last job; it took him several years to clear his financial history of "digital" scammers. "TOMORROW".
It turns out that with digitalization, humanity has received more problems than benefits? Irina MUKHINA. Every coin has two sides. As beneficial as the speed of digital transactions and the high quality of communication are, all this can turn into big risks. And first of all, it is necessary to protect the most inexperienced, defenseless children from scammers. "TOMORROW". Please tell us how can we do this? Irina MUKHINA. As far as I know, children under the age of 14 in the Russian Federation are not required to have an identification number.
If asked in medical institutions or schools, the parent has the right to say that the state allows us not to have a number. There is a Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 687 of September 15, 2008, it is devoted to the peculiarities of doing business with people who do not have an identification number, that is, it is about the processing of personal data "carried out without automation tools." This law must be used, because it is it that allows people to minimize risks that may turn out to be irreversible. We are always in a hurry somewhere and chasing an ultra-fast, bright "packaging" of life. But this is only external .
. Remember Goodwin from The Wizard of the Emerald City, who sat behind a screen and presented himself to each incoming person in a different way: to someone as a mermaid, to someone as a talking ball .. But he was just carrying a private person, and his "projections" had nothing to do with reality. This image very prominently reminds children and adults of the non-identity of the external and internal in the modern inverted world. These things are almost never said out loud.
And we are often naive and see only the outer side of the situation. And in fact, Christianity is being replaced on a global scale by a new “highly effective” religion, its name is “dataism” (“date” in English is data, the “blood” of the digital economy). "TOMORROW". One gets the feeling that the enemy is omnipotent, because even now he can draw up a psychological portrait of a teenager by fifty "likes" on the Web and take him away from his family. It comes to the fact that groups of perverts in the same social networks are looking for slaves, if you call a spade a spade. Irina MUKHINA. I still do not have a feeling of their omnipotence, because I believe that only God is omnipotent! Yes, there is Satanism, and I sometimes see representatives of this Satanism in the world elites.
But this is a struggle between good and evil, which has always been. And now, for example, a split reigns within the American elite: the globalist camp, which is supported by speculative financial circles associated with the Federal Reserve System, and all those who effectively oppose this camp. We are seeing how globalism is choking all over the world, as it does not take into account the difference in cultural codes. For example, at the beginning of the 21st century, the Chaimeriki project from the words China (China) and America was seriously discussed in America. Globalist financiers were confident that by investing in Chinese production of cheap goods, they would not only be able to increase the profits of multinational corporations, but also increase the middle class in China, which would begin to consume more and “pull out” the entire world economy. Because the West does not think of another economy, except for the economy of consumption. But the globalists stumbled over China.
And now China has almost completely rebuilt itself from global technologies. Having received Western know-how, he became the "forge of the world", supplying, ultimately, the United States. Trade wars are waged precisely because of this: capital began to flow to China. And this allows us to speak of an Asian cycle of capital accumulation, which implies both an Asian mode of production and Asian production relations built on a cultural code different from that of the West. The Soviet Union also lived in a fundamentally different economic paradigm. The West is afraid of this experience of ours, therefore, ardent Russophobia continues to rule the ocean overseas. I watched how all the "talking heads" on the screens of our so-called "trading floor" (places of exchange trading) defame President Putin in all ways on all channels and in all languages during 2014-2015.
All the time I thought: how much money should be invested in such a targeted propaganda hysteria! And this madness of Russophobia continues. Of course, they are afraid of us, they are afraid that we are not like them, although outwardly the Slavs almost do not differ from the Anglo-Saxons. Why am I saying this? To the fact that China, very wisely and cunningly, using its ancient cultural code and the Communist Party, technologically rebuilt itself from the Western system. And now he is offering everyone the "New Silk Road" - a global project, an alternative to the Western one. For Russia, too, not everything is lost. Our education system was quite reliable until the end of the 20th century, and only one or two generations fell into the meat grinder of the thoughtless Bologna system. "TOMORROW".
What needs to be done to restore our values? Irina MUKHINA. We must revive the methods of the Soviet school. Education and production should be based on three components of any modern technological chain: hardware, software and a developed human brain. Many projects financed by international funds are now being launched in Russia. Not everyone may be aware of the activities of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI). They are closely involved in neuronet - a topic that I follow closely. But from there, as well as from many other places, pardon the expression, the most interesting ideas are filtered out, and they disappear from Russia without a trace and for nothing.
Why are patents and dissertations published in English?! Thus, the people participating in all these grants are renting out Russia's intellectual property to our competitors under the guise of the need for globalization! Is English really necessary for the Russian scientific space? I have many friends who work in expert councils, where they evaluate the work. It is no secret to them that often talented Russian developments end up in the West and are introduced there without any compensation to the one who invented them. But looking back at the West, alas, we continue. Therefore, it is necessary, as in the thirties, to conduct a techno-educational program, get rid of the Western "legacy" imposed on us and replace it with our own - with our own Internet and "iron" in the first place, as China did. And do not pay attention to the lamentations of the "fashionable" public that we will again turn into a totalitarian country. We must not allow the "collective West" to tidy up to its tentacles on our natural and human resources, our sources of growth. "TOMORROW".
The West encroaches on both our brain and our body.. Irina MUKHINA. Yes, and calls for all the troubles to blame the Russian government! The West is interested in Russia following a dead end route. By the way, in the West, the population is subjected to dead-end practices. For example, in the province of Ontario in 2016, euthanasia was legalized, that is, they began to euthanize people without the consent of their relatives.
Introduced compulsory sexual education of children from the first grade. Dissenting school principals were fired and replaced with gay workers. And parents have no way to protect their children from molestation! Many schools have created clubs where children are drawn into discussions to sow doubts about their natural sexual orientation and impose alternatives and even gender reassignment surgery, which is financed from citizens' taxes and does not require parental permission. This is how the fruits of the Anglo-Saxon civilization are reaped. Its cultural code is "my home is my castle". She has always nurtured individualists, champions of financial "freedom." In their world, it is not customary to open the door to a destitute or unexpected guest.
And we see how now their philosophy is opposed by the "muscular" traditional cultures of refugees with their reliance on family, clan and so on. In Rus', a person could always rely on the family and the community; in the Soviet Union, a person was protected by a strong and just state. The liberal system brought commercialization and corruption to almost all spheres of the state. "TOMORROW". And with total digitalization of a person, there will be no one to protect at all? Irina MUKHINA. Of course, because the goal of this project is the complete atomization of society. The idea of eternal digitized life, which is sung by the apologists of "dataism" is just a beautiful lie, the purpose of which is to collect biometric data for total control.
Its adherents do not remember the soul. This is the apogee of the Western world, where everyone takes pleasure for himself and for himself. Techno-individualism is much more dear to the West than to Russia, where people are still connected with mother earth and roots. Parents in Russia are still allowed to be parents in the full sense of the word. This crucial role needs to be played only with a plus: pay attention to self-education, try to understand what is happening in the world, support and protect children, help them find real friends and like-minded people who are nearby. The onset of dark times is felt in the literal sense of the word. After all, all digitalization is “closed” to such a fragile and elusive substance as electricity.
In the mid-2000s, I witnessed a global power outage in Canada. After two days, people didn't know what to do. ATMs stopped dispensing cash, shops closed, refrigerators leaked, meat went bad, beer got lukewarm. Catastrophe! That is, modern people are very vulnerable and for the most part do not have the minimum skills of survival and self-sufficiency. If you really want, you can, of course, learn to grow potatoes for any city dweller. But more and more genetically modified crops are being imposed on us, which do not produce seeds, that is, they take away from us even the simplest means of self-survival. Now is the time to bring normal people together in the face of the risks that the cold-blooded architects of the digital world bring to our children.
"TOMORROW". Their pressure is getting stronger every year.. Irina MUKHINA. Yes, but the number is not omnipotent! Moreover, I foresee the imminent end of it as an idea. Russia is about to change.
It was not in vain that it was said about Stalin that he took the country with a plow, but left it with atomic weapons. Yes, some say that this was achieved by prisoners in labor camps. And I’ll ask these: what is better, in sharashkas, to engage in an intellectual, interesting business, like Korolev, or to live in virtual games, shooters, to be of no use to anyone and do nothing but order pizza and sex on the Internet? There are already hundreds of thousands of young people in Japan who live without going out, hikikomori they call them, a rather scary phenomenon. Do we really want such a disease in our country? "TOMORROW". People begin to resist only at the moment when they feel threatened. Irina MUKHINA. Of course, but many media outlets and individual ambitious figures lull the people or give them the wrong picture, such as Dud's outrageous "documentary" film about Kolyma, which is completely profanity and distortion of history for the needs of Stalin's haters.
But Stalin had no choice in the face of history, and he successfully mobilized in a gigantic, predominantly agricultural country! We should pay close attention to digitalization, which concerns all Russian children. Sometimes I have to hear: “Irina Konstantinovna, why are you so opposed to chips? Well, they will make chipization, and our child will know more foreign languages.” Such unfortunate parents are ready to hand over the child to no one knows who, because together with foreign languages, the child can also be implanted with obsessive thoughts about suicide or killing someone! As for languages, translators are not a problem now. The problem is that people wanted everything at once, so that, as if by magic, the result was instantaneous; Few people are now diligent without vanity, few people want to develop the brain through painstaking intellectual work. Therefore, before allowing supporters of new technologies to experiment with your child, you need to carefully weigh everything. "TOMORROW". Are your calls being heeded? Irina MUKHINA.
I write in LiveJournal on general topics, where finance, technology, economics, globalization, digitalization are viewed through the prism of a Human. My readers sometimes reproach me: “You are a specialist in mathematics, do mathematics!” But living in a crisis of human life, I can not keep silent about it. In order to somehow adapt my ideas to a wider audience, I am running a video blog "Artificial Intelligence for Housewives". It is dedicated to the impact of digital technologies on education, communication, and our household. And the question is not that children should not go headlong into computer games, but that we all need to think together on these topics and not hope for a chance. Some readers tell me: “Why talk about bad things? Let's just talk about the good! Also a naive position. The elders said this about the end times: “Keep silent, and Satan will triumph!” Therefore, we have no right to hush up disturbing issues.
Another reproach that I regularly hear addressed to me: “If you are so against new technologies, then why are you using them? Go to the desert, take a hoe, work the land." That is, they suspect me of insincerity. But I believe that the enemy must be known by sight; I, as a specialist, as a mother and grandmother, study technologies for a clear understanding of the dubious moments of the “new beautiful world”: brainwashing, direct harm to physical and mental health, dehumanization. Or rather, oskotinivanie! I use this Russian word without hesitation. In order to resist modern manipulations with consciousness: the artificial imposition of a mosaic picture of the world, the substitution of truth for fiction, the discrediting of heroes, it is necessary to have a firm worldview. I understand that in arguing in this way, I will meet many objections. I will listen to them, I generally treat people with respect.
But I try not to stop my activities, and I will be happy to share with you my understanding of the moments related to the impact of digital technologies on a person, family and society. .