Fake news, deep fake videos, fake products, fake identity. All of these are deemed as bad, inherently bad. Yet as in every good thing there’s a pinch of bad, so it goes for the reverse.

I just read this title about Uber drivers using fake identities. Great, it lets them escape the prison of grades given to them by evil passengers, which inevitably happens. A fake identity is malleable, it can be corrected, or dropped and a new one taken on. Great for drivers, not immediately bad for the passengers. Trust is a problem, however it’s not gained by technology and, sorry to say that, not even by the truth. It is gained by an honest purpose to do good to the other, to be consistent in it, to divulge concern and reservation in dignity.

Years ago I thought quantum mechanics would protect us from too deep of an intrusion of surveillance. You know the quote about the observer changing the observed by mere observation. I thought people would start fighting it by exchanging identities so that for some time I become you and you become me, or a third person. We would be doing this in order to cover our tracks. I don’t mind Google helping me, but the moment the help comes with a price too high on my privacy, I want to start tricking it. I will, maybe I do already.

That’s why fakes are a godsend. They lend us back our freedom. Maybe we need a VPN-like protection for our faces, an interchangeable and intractable set of phone numbers or protocols that point to us just for the specifics that we need.

I’m sure this is an area that will wildly grow. It has infested the media, get ready to enter real life soon.