6 ms·

Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

66 points by ms-rm 13y ago

josephpmay 13y ago
This makes a number of assumptions that I think (based on historical trends) will end up proving false. The first is that the services we use today (Yelp, Facebook, Google, etc.) will continue to be the dominate services of the future. Of course, the author probably just used these names for convenience instead of inventing new companies, but I have a feeling that the apps and services we'll be using 10 years from now don't exist today. A more pressing false assumption is that all of these services (or whatever services are being used) will harmoniously work together. Though we have pretty strong inter-service collaboration currently (such Yelp telling us which restaurants our Facebook friends like), it is not that often that these platform relationships exist and even less common that everyone will be using the same interconnected services. Finally, the assumption that is both the most necessary for this reality to be our future yet is also the most dubious is that with the dawn of quantum computing, algorithms will be able to properly interpret and predict human behavior. Thus far, algorithms fail pretty miserably at this (when was the last time you actually wanted to buy something suggested to you by Amazon?) and although the future resources available will have the capacity to interpret human behavior, it will be much farther in the future before we really will be able to utilize these available resources. I still believe that always-on wearable computers with a constant information stream is where the consumer technology industry is heading (I've been saying this for years, and I don't necessarily think that Google will be the ones to perfect this formula). However, before we reach a society like the one predicted by this article, we (as computer scientists and mathematicians) need to become much better at interpreting and predicting human behavior. I think the first step in this is to understand how the brain works, which is probably going to be the most exciting facit of biomedical research in the coming decades.
angersock 13y ago
How awful. What exactly is the purpose of being here if all you are doing is somewhat stochastically deciding between a few sterile choices presented to you by a computer? Why bother interacting with people who's life experience is basically just ads and the most agreeable-seeming things they elected to participate in from their preferred social network? How utterly fucking boring. It's enough to make me want to live in a cabin in the woods with nothing but a 28.8 and some old Irix box to keep me and my dogs company. >:(
- Blahah 13y ago
  What? That's the opposite of what I take from the story (although the author was clearly intending it as dystopian). The Glass in the story is not removing options, it's adding them. It's just layering information over the real world to provide a deeper, not shallower, experience. Why do people feel that the boundaries of their limited un-enhanced experience are somehow desirable?
  - angersock 13y ago
    It's layering information which may or may not be correct, and given people's natural laziness of decision it only increases the odds of filter bubbling--that is not a deeper experience. All you are doing is being empowered to ignore things which don't match your advertising profile most closely, being empowered to ignore things outside your comfort zone (in 10 years, I'm sure this will be popular with the yuppies in SF who would like to even more easily ignore the homeless refugees of gentrification). A basic part of the human experience--of being a complete person--is learning how to interact with other people who may or may not be easy to get along with, and exploring new things and perspectives on life. Nowhere in this vignette is there a suggestion that the Glass will help you learn to interact with other people (because it is set to minimize the presentation of those you aren't predisposed to get along with) or encounter new things (that aren't carefully cultivated by the big data engines). Let's not even go into the privacy concerns here (because clearly nobody gives a chrome-plated fuck about that anymore), or the unfortunate, darker sides to this.
    - Blahah 13y ago
      Well, all the information we ever use may or not be correct. We use it nevertheless and accept a certain false positive rate. It probably does increase filter bubbling, but that is generally something people accept. One can expose oneself to different viewpoints quite readily, and that's a personal choice people can make. I think that statement about getting along with difficult people being a basic part of the human experience doesn't have to be true. It just happens to be part of the human experience now. And in any case, while the story didn't offer any glimpse of Glass helping you to encounter new things or learn to interact with other people, there's no reason why it couldn't.
mtgx 13y ago
I assume he wanted the readers to now think negatively about this future. I kind of like it. Plus, that's not just the "Google world". It's the Internet. Do you think you can just unplug from the Internet 10 years from now? Can you do it now? It's only going to get harder, especially for new generations that are born with it. What does worry me about the future, is governments having total knowledge about every single person, no matter what they are doing, who they are, and what service they are using. Do you really think they will need Google for this? Sure, in a way companies like Facebook and Google are making their jobs a lot easier. But do you think this will matter when they will have quantum computers? They will be able to get signals from a billion actions you've done on the Internet, regardless of what service you used. Gmail and Facebook usage will just be some of the signals. And what happens when governments have total knowledge about everyone, whether it's legal or not? What happens when the governments can predict with quantum computers the potential of committing every type of crime for every single person? Maybe you have a 0.0000001% to be a terrorist. Maybe a 1% chance to beat someone, and maybe a 5% chance to smoke pot. Do they arrest you now, or do they wait until the quantum computers predict it's 10%? These discussions about privacy breaches from companies seem like mainly a distraction from the real issues to me. It reminds me of the outrage of gun owners who "want to defend against an oppressive government" and "protect the 2nd amendment", but don't make a sound when the government cancels the 4th, 5th or even the 1st amendment. Or the 6 months outrage of the media over Benghazi, while covering the AP spying story for like 3 days. Google can't physically harm you or destroy your life. Governments can. I would worry more about that. A lot more.
- sudont 13y ago
  Can't destroy your life? http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57579765-93/google-loses-autocomplete-defamation-suit-in-japan/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57579765-93/google-loses-au...
- olalonde 13y ago
  > Do they arrest you now, or do they wait until the quantum computers predict it's 10%? The movie Minority Report revolves around that idea (in case you haven't already seen it).
MrQuincle 13y ago
Is that all for a dystopia? Technologies used to came with a risk incredibly higher. Nuclear warfare, etc. We are now talking about "cyber warfare". I've yet to see the first American killed by a Chinese or North-Korean hacker. And I think the term "cyber warfare" is entirely inappropriate, and does not do justice to the atrocities of a real war. If this is all what can be thought up about the negative impact of Google glasses, we have nothing to worry about.
- personlurking 13y ago
  In the film Surrogates, there's a device that, when discharged on 'avatars', kills the real person operating the avatar. I wonder if cyber warfare of the future entails this kind of thing. I would assume that being physically connected to a(n implanted) device would allow for this but, then again, non-implanted technology has been known to cause photosensitive epilepsy (like the Pokeman seizures).
egypturnash 13y ago
Suddenly, there are strange things in the hotel bar with you. Cartoon animals, talking monsters. Is that a human-sized preying mantis cuddling with a buxom triceratops girl? And wow, check out that pack of wolf-things. They're flickering with colors and lights, all synchronized to the same beat. They're a walking rave. And none of these strange-looking people have public profiles. Must be one of those freaky avatar conventions going on in the same hotel.
- personlurking 13y ago
  Sounds like something tokyo residents would like. I fear we're headed for this ("Future Travel" short animation), though http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKrYHLE8mDc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKrYHLE8mDc
- iuguy 13y ago
  Sounds like a normal day in Second Life to me. Just steer clear of the furries.
  - egypturnash 13y ago
    Too late. I've been one since somewhere in the early nineties. And I gotta say, they throw the best damn parties.
    - iuguy 13y ago
      This is true. I watched the Great Gatsby the other day and I thought "Baz Luhrman would have a field day if he ever went to a furry shindig".
goostavos 13y ago
A bit of an offshoot from the article, but is the quantum calculation speed true, or just flowery journalist language? Simultaneously being 0 and 1 at the same time? Solving problems faster than imaginable? Is it possible to understand the ideas behind quantum computing without having a physics degree? Is there a good layman introduction somewhere?
- wikke 13y ago
  In laymans terms: If you have 0 and 1 as inputs you have to try all possible combinations to get all possible results and choose an optimal one. If you have all possible combinations of 0 and 1 at once you can just use the optimal solution in one step.
Zigurd 13y ago
This is actually a fairly optimistic projection. Consider how difficult it would be for a secret policeman to infiltrate a dissident group in this kind of environment. The real dystopia comes with privileged groups being able to block recognition.
- DanielBMarkham 13y ago
  I don't think so. All you need to do is be able to monitor everybody else. Secret policemen not required anymore.
personlurking 13y ago
While it's likely I'd be the person not wearing Glass in 10 years, the scenario in the article shows a world in which people would likely not judge a person by their appearance, but rather what info comes up attached to their profile(s). Good for INTPs who don't care for chit-chat.
- pyre 13y ago
  Are you sure that not having a profile won't make you an NPC?
  - personlurking 13y ago
    I'm guessing you mean "non-player character" (just looked that up) but I'm not sure what you're asking here... I assume that one could not wear Glass in the future yet still have online profiles (which others would perhaps still be able to see with facial rec. via their Glass).
randallsquared 13y ago
Dystopia? This sounds amazing! I assume that AdBlock will still exist, which optionally removes the one thing I felt even slightly bad about in this scenario.
- msabalau 13y ago
  At first I made the same mistake, thinking the headline writer was referring to this future state as a dystopia. Instead, it's a candid admission that Pandodaily is a timesuck of low value linkbait, and that from this dystopian vantage point the article views a more hopeful future.
- zxcdw 13y ago
  Positives sound great, but how about negatives? Kind of like modern food is toxic and unhealthy, but hey it's cheap, there's lots of it and well... It doesn't taste that bad! Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to lean meat, fish, seeds and berries even though it costs me twice/thrice the money let alone preparation. And it can't be preserved as well. But whatever, fuck the dystopian future. :)
  - randallsquared 13y ago
    I'm struck, though, that the title indicates the author thought he was presenting the negatives!
TheShadowFog 13y ago
This sounds horrible.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
pvnick 13y ago
Wow! I've always had a thing for dystopian literature, and the world this article presents actually seems plausible. Two ideas I particularly found intriguing: -The idea of using an avatar to mask your true physical appearance. This seems like an appealing idea since changing your avatar on a settings panel is easier than keeping well-groomed and presentable. Perhaps citizens of the Google Glass world no longer feel the need to stay healthy and attractive? Could this level the playing field and take sexual attractiveness out of the picture altogether? Never again would someone be "out of your league." Will all our loving relationships be calculated and planned based on some OkCupid-esque compatibility algorithm? Perhaps a side-effect of this is a higher rate of sustainable marriages and a decreased divorce rate. So not completely bad and creepy. -The way the author claims "You know you have free will, but don’t feel like you need it." I've felt for a while that the more realistic dystopian future is closer to Brave New World than to 1984, in which people willingly give up their freedom rather than have it snatched away from them. Instead of saying "You know you have free will, but it doesn't really feel like it," Pananberg opts for the phrasing "don't feel like you need it." It seems to suggest that free will in a Google Glass world is a burden, and that giving up that freedom to a benevolent intelligence just feels easier. Either way, when I finished the article I pressed the "like" button, sending the event to my Facebook Timeline so that all my friends can stay connected with the things I find interesting and so that Facebook's Hadoop clusters can factor it into their advertising algorithms, allowing the company to more intelligently display products I would be interested in buying. I'll tell you one thing, that no longer includes Google Glass.
- Blahah 13y ago
  The avatar idea has been a staple of sci-fi for a long time, at least since Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992). Personally I don't find it creepy at all. Ever used SecondLife? Nothing about the scenario in the article actually suggests a loss of free will - if anything it suggests a gain of super-free will in which people are more able to have their desires fulfilled by accentuating and enhancing what the real world can offer.
  - pvnick 13y ago
    >Nothing about the scenario in the article actually suggests a loss of free will - if anything it suggests a gain of super-free will in which people are more able to have their desires fulfilled by accentuating and enhancing what the real world can offer. At the end of the article, it depicts the people taking off their Glass only to find the real world bland and uncomfortable, quickly returning to the relative comfort of the virtual reality they've grown dependent on. These people can no longer cope with life on life's terms. If that's not a loss of free will then I don't know what is.
ireadqrcodes 13y ago
I think he got the "You’re constantly logged into Facebook ..." wrong. It will be google plus or something completely different
danabramov 13y ago
>The biophysio meter has been gauging the mood in the room, color coding them for convenience. Personally, you’ve always found that red hot conversations give you a headache while ice blue ones bore you to tears. The computer is able to pick up all the sounds in the room and sift through the conversations. You seek a color combination somewhat in the middle, a group of people not talking about sports or fashion. Actually, I want this.
- anonymous 13y ago
  +1. I always hate it when I enter a party and the violent cacophony of five or even ten simultaneous conversations hits me at once. And even when I find a group of people I can stand, there's this awful noise all around. It would be pretty awesome if glass could not only find the people for me, but also actively filter everybody else, so I can talk in relative quiet.
  - angersock 13y ago
    Why not simply stay home, eat Doritos, drink Mountain Dew, and surf IRC? Sounds like you want all of the social without the part where you interact with society.
    - pvnick 13y ago
      I think what you just described actually sounds appealing to the HN crowd.
    - taejo 13y ago
      Or maybe there are different kinds of social interactions and some people prefer the "six friends sharing a meal" type to "a hundred people at a party". Just a thought.
    - anonymous 13y ago
      Because, insane as it sounds, I'm better at talking face to face, than typing over IRC. I just want it not so loud and obnoxious. Also, Doritos and Mountain Dew taste awful and are bad for you. I'd rather have a salad.
stared 13y ago
I think that when it comes to "the Google contact lenses dystopia" there is no better comment than a short movie "Sight" http://vimeo.com/46304267 http://vimeo.com/46304267. (It starts with gamification of cucumber cutting.)
- mikesaraf 13y ago
  Its funny that the game in the opening of "Sight", released 10 months ago, is similar to one they had at Google IO this year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqOluB4e-q4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqOluB4e-q4
nsmartt 13y ago
I'm particularly disturbed by the notion that I'll be a pariah if I don't have some form of profile for people to check. That sounds very plausible to me, and we're already seeing it on a significantly smaller scale.
weavejester 13y ago
The article picks a curious line to end on: "You know you have free will, but don’t feel like you need it." Which is odd, considering that the protagonist of the tale has done nothing but make choices throughout the whole story.
- swombat 13y ago
  Making choices out of a selection determined by someone else is not freedom. They have this freedom even in places like North Korea...
  - randallsquared 13y ago
    Choices don't seem be to constrained. Rather, there is more information about the likely outcome of making many of the most likely choices. Seems like a huge win to me. I can still be ignored or turned off. It's still possible to just walk out and go elsewhere.
    - swombat 13y ago
      It's worth considering this dystopia in parallel with this the oft-quoted saying that "In the future, there will be two kinds of people: those who tell computers what to do, and those who are told what to do by computers". Then throw in this: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21578360-brain-work-may-be-going-way-manual-work-age-smart-machines http://www.economist.com/news/business/21578360-brain-work-m... Perhaps the first group will dwindle faster than we think.
      - weavejester 13y ago
        We're all told what to do by computers anyway, it's just that they happen to be 3lbs of squishy biomatter inside our skulls.
- rbanffy 13y ago
  When someone controls (and/or biases) the information feed you base your decisions upon, your will is no longer completely free. We used to call it news media ;-)
molex333 13y ago
This is a dream come true. Where do I sign up?
wittysense 13y ago
«For under the firm measure, The crude, too, is useful, That the pure may know itself.» -- Hoelderlin, The Titans A la Heidegger. Given the sensationalism in tone of this writing, it seems only Heidegger is appropriate as a forthright response. In a sense, we see two very crude tools: public surveillance via legislation or public surveillance via a device (which some "market") apparently demands. In all of the ways we have come to know and love, these are both problematical departures from a reality alluded to in the Internet Declaration of Independence. The old ways of thinking are an impasse. You must understand that the old ways of thinking are an impasse. In Heidegger's terms, such an impasse can be described by the fact that [we are the sign that is not read]. Moreover, that we are still not thinking, yet we are underway to thinking. «And let not much-current habit force you into this way, to let roam sightless eyes and noise-cluttered ear and [tongue*], rather discriminate in reflection . . .» I recently recall a short prose alluding to a fictional possible world, wherein the denizens of its society were allotted so many words per day. Debord may service as a modulation of Hedeigger's foreboding: «The self-emancipation of our time is an emancipation from the material bases of inverted truth. This “historic mission of establishing truth in the world” can be carried out neither by the isolated individual nor by atomized and manipulated masses, but only and always by the class that is able to dissolve all classes by reducing all power to the de-alienating form of realized democracy — to councils in which practical theory verifies itself and surveys its own actions. This is possible only when individuals are “directly linked to world history” and [dialogue*] arms itself to impose its own conditions.» Heidegger is a bit more optimistic, as he essentially must be: «"What is called thinking?" At the end we return to the question we asked at first when we found out what our word "thinking" originally means. _Thanc_ means memory, thinking that recalls, thanks [interjecting "Likes"!]. But in the meantime we have learned to see that the essential nature of thinking is determined by what there is to be thought about: the presence of what is present, the Being of beings. Thinking is thinking only when it _recalls_ in thought ἐόν, That which this word indicates properly and truly, that is, unspoken, tacitly. And that is the duality of beings and Being. This quality is what properly gives food for thought. And what is so given, is the gift of what is most worthy of question. Can thinking take this gift into its hands, that is, take it to heart, in order to entrust it in λέγειν, in the telling statement, to the original speech of language?»
AndrewKemendo 13y ago
>On your left is a woman you don’t know, but she’s a friend of a friend of your cousin Irving’s roommate’s niece. Her name is Tina, a physics professor at the local university, and she likes extreme skiing, origami and baking. Tomorrow she’ll be giving a presentation. You can view her slides and video now, if you’d like, and scan her bio. You don’t. You think it’s interesting that her favorite author is Jane Austen and thirty-seven people “liked” a post she penned on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. She’s sipping what the computer deduces to be a green apple martini and your Google-powered submicro-computer advertises a selection of snacks to go with it, as well as a choice of vodkas and mixers, which you can order at the blink of an eye. Maybe later. That sounds amazing! I would probably filter it to give me specific results because I'm not as interested in some of those things than others.
mwcampbell 13y ago
> The music from the wall speakers sounds tinny. Would there even be loudspeakers in such a world? If we all wore computers with earpieces, there would be no need for sound amplification as we know it now. I, for one, would welcome the end of music played over loudspeakers in public places, chosen according to someone else's idea of what music the masses would like.
TravisLS 13y ago
I'm surprised to see the attitude of this thread as so optimistic about this potential future. Even ignoring the government / police state possibilities, I found this terribly dystopian, and I imagine many others outside of the most optimistic tech bubbles would agree. While taken individually, many of the technologies presented in the story seem to be useful or even fun, the world they create is inescapably bland. And it's the inescapability of it that makes it so awful. While on the surface these theoretical advances provide value, they also potentially destroy the possibility of serendipitous interaction, of meeting someone incompatible, of having your perspective changed, of connecting with someone intimately. For me, the "problems" being solved by the tech in this story are much of what makes life worth living. While building technology, I think it's important to consider the effects and side effects of these things, and to focus on technology that improves and enhances our lives, rather than takes them over.
linhmtran168 13y ago
This will be the beginning of a world like in the Matrix. Gradually, it's Glass (or Lenses, or whatever) will control what we want to see, to hear and to choose. A world where everything is predictable to the computer and is comfortable to our liking. Well, I don't like that world.

66 points by ms-rm 13y ago

This makes a number of assumptions that I think (based on historical trends) will end up proving false. The first is that the services we use today (Yelp, Facebook, Google, etc.) will continue to be the dominate services of the future. Of course, the author probably just used these names for convenience instead of inventing new companies, but I have a feeling that the apps and services we'll be using 10 years from now don't exist today. A more pressing false assumption is that all of these services (or whatever services are being used) will harmoniously work together. Though we have pretty strong inter-service collaboration currently (such Yelp telling us which restaurants our Facebook friends like), it is not that often that these platform relationships exist and even less common that everyone will be using the same interconnected services. Finally, the assumption that is both the most necessary for this reality to be our future yet is also the most dubious is that with the dawn of quantum computing, algorithms will be able to properly interpret and predict human behavior. Thus far, algorithms fail pretty miserably at this (when was the last time you actually wanted to buy something suggested to you by Amazon?) and although the future resources available will have the capacity to interpret human behavior, it will be much farther in the future before we really will be able to utilize these available resources. I still believe that always-on wearable computers with a constant information stream is where the consumer technology industry is heading (I've been saying this for years, and I don't necessarily think that Google will be the ones to perfect this formula). However, before we reach a society like the one predicted by this article, we (as computer scientists and mathematicians) need to become much better at interpreting and predicting human behavior. I think the first step in this is to understand how the brain works, which is probably going to be the most exciting facit of biomedical research in the coming decades.

angersock 13y ago

How awful. What exactly is the purpose of being here if all you are doing is somewhat stochastically deciding between a few sterile choices presented to you by a computer? Why bother interacting with people who's life experience is basically just ads and the most agreeable-seeming things they elected to participate in from their preferred social network? How utterly fucking boring. It's enough to make me want to live in a cabin in the woods with nothing but a 28.8 and some old Irix box to keep me and my dogs company. >:(

Blahah 13y ago
What? That's the opposite of what I take from the story (although the author was clearly intending it as dystopian). The Glass in the story is not removing options, it's adding them. It's just layering information over the real world to provide a deeper, not shallower, experience. Why do people feel that the boundaries of their limited un-enhanced experience are somehow desirable?
- angersock 13y ago
  It's layering information which may or may not be correct, and given people's natural laziness of decision it only increases the odds of filter bubbling--that is not a deeper experience. All you are doing is being empowered to ignore things which don't match your advertising profile most closely, being empowered to ignore things outside your comfort zone (in 10 years, I'm sure this will be popular with the yuppies in SF who would like to even more easily ignore the homeless refugees of gentrification). A basic part of the human experience--of being a complete person--is learning how to interact with other people who may or may not be easy to get along with, and exploring new things and perspectives on life. Nowhere in this vignette is there a suggestion that the Glass will help you learn to interact with other people (because it is set to minimize the presentation of those you aren't predisposed to get along with) or encounter new things (that aren't carefully cultivated by the big data engines). Let's not even go into the privacy concerns here (because clearly nobody gives a chrome-plated fuck about that anymore), or the unfortunate, darker sides to this.
  - Blahah 13y ago
    Well, all the information we ever use may or not be correct. We use it nevertheless and accept a certain false positive rate. It probably does increase filter bubbling, but that is generally something people accept. One can expose oneself to different viewpoints quite readily, and that's a personal choice people can make. I think that statement about getting along with difficult people being a basic part of the human experience doesn't have to be true. It just happens to be part of the human experience now. And in any case, while the story didn't offer any glimpse of Glass helping you to encounter new things or learn to interact with other people, there's no reason why it couldn't.

mtgx 13y ago

I assume he wanted the readers to now think negatively about this future. I kind of like it. Plus, that's not just the "Google world". It's the Internet. Do you think you can just unplug from the Internet 10 years from now? Can you do it now? It's only going to get harder, especially for new generations that are born with it. What does worry me about the future, is governments having total knowledge about every single person, no matter what they are doing, who they are, and what service they are using. Do you really think they will need Google for this? Sure, in a way companies like Facebook and Google are making their jobs a lot easier. But do you think this will matter when they will have quantum computers? They will be able to get signals from a billion actions you've done on the Internet, regardless of what service you used. Gmail and Facebook usage will just be some of the signals. And what happens when governments have total knowledge about everyone, whether it's legal or not? What happens when the governments can predict with quantum computers the potential of committing every type of crime for every single person? Maybe you have a 0.0000001% to be a terrorist. Maybe a 1% chance to beat someone, and maybe a 5% chance to smoke pot. Do they arrest you now, or do they wait until the quantum computers predict it's 10%? These discussions about privacy breaches from companies seem like mainly a distraction from the real issues to me. It reminds me of the outrage of gun owners who "want to defend against an oppressive government" and "protect the 2nd amendment", but don't make a sound when the government cancels the 4th, 5th or even the 1st amendment. Or the 6 months outrage of the media over Benghazi, while covering the AP spying story for like 3 days. Google can't physically harm you or destroy your life. Governments can. I would worry more about that. A lot more.

sudont 13y ago
Can't destroy your life? http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57579765-93/google-loses-autocomplete-defamation-suit-in-japan/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57579765-93/google-loses-au...
olalonde 13y ago
> Do they arrest you now, or do they wait until the quantum computers predict it's 10%? The movie Minority Report revolves around that idea (in case you haven't already seen it).

MrQuincle 13y ago

Is that all for a dystopia? Technologies used to came with a risk incredibly higher. Nuclear warfare, etc. We are now talking about "cyber warfare". I've yet to see the first American killed by a Chinese or North-Korean hacker. And I think the term "cyber warfare" is entirely inappropriate, and does not do justice to the atrocities of a real war. If this is all what can be thought up about the negative impact of Google glasses, we have nothing to worry about.

personlurking 13y ago
In the film Surrogates, there's a device that, when discharged on 'avatars', kills the real person operating the avatar. I wonder if cyber warfare of the future entails this kind of thing. I would assume that being physically connected to a(n implanted) device would allow for this but, then again, non-implanted technology has been known to cause photosensitive epilepsy (like the Pokeman seizures).

egypturnash 13y ago

Suddenly, there are strange things in the hotel bar with you. Cartoon animals, talking monsters. Is that a human-sized preying mantis cuddling with a buxom triceratops girl? And wow, check out that pack of wolf-things. They're flickering with colors and lights, all synchronized to the same beat. They're a walking rave. And none of these strange-looking people have public profiles. Must be one of those freaky avatar conventions going on in the same hotel.

personlurking 13y ago
Sounds like something tokyo residents would like. I fear we're headed for this ("Future Travel" short animation), though http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKrYHLE8mDc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKrYHLE8mDc
iuguy 13y ago
Sounds like a normal day in Second Life to me. Just steer clear of the furries.
- egypturnash 13y ago
  Too late. I've been one since somewhere in the early nineties. And I gotta say, they throw the best damn parties.
  - iuguy 13y ago
    This is true. I watched the Great Gatsby the other day and I thought "Baz Luhrman would have a field day if he ever went to a furry shindig".

goostavos 13y ago

A bit of an offshoot from the article, but is the quantum calculation speed true, or just flowery journalist language? Simultaneously being 0 and 1 at the same time? Solving problems faster than imaginable? Is it possible to understand the ideas behind quantum computing without having a physics degree? Is there a good layman introduction somewhere?

wikke 13y ago
In laymans terms: If you have 0 and 1 as inputs you have to try all possible combinations to get all possible results and choose an optimal one. If you have all possible combinations of 0 and 1 at once you can just use the optimal solution in one step.

Zigurd 13y ago

This is actually a fairly optimistic projection. Consider how difficult it would be for a secret policeman to infiltrate a dissident group in this kind of environment. The real dystopia comes with privileged groups being able to block recognition.

DanielBMarkham 13y ago
I don't think so. All you need to do is be able to monitor everybody else. Secret policemen not required anymore.

personlurking 13y ago

While it's likely I'd be the person not wearing Glass in 10 years, the scenario in the article shows a world in which people would likely not judge a person by their appearance, but rather what info comes up attached to their profile(s). Good for INTPs who don't care for chit-chat.

pyre 13y ago
Are you sure that not having a profile won't make you an NPC?
- personlurking 13y ago
  I'm guessing you mean "non-player character" (just looked that up) but I'm not sure what you're asking here... I assume that one could not wear Glass in the future yet still have online profiles (which others would perhaps still be able to see with facial rec. via their Glass).

randallsquared 13y ago

Dystopia? This sounds amazing! I assume that AdBlock will still exist, which optionally removes the one thing I felt even slightly bad about in this scenario.

msabalau 13y ago
At first I made the same mistake, thinking the headline writer was referring to this future state as a dystopia. Instead, it's a candid admission that Pandodaily is a timesuck of low value linkbait, and that from this dystopian vantage point the article views a more hopeful future.
zxcdw 13y ago
Positives sound great, but how about negatives? Kind of like modern food is toxic and unhealthy, but hey it's cheap, there's lots of it and well... It doesn't taste that bad! Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to lean meat, fish, seeds and berries even though it costs me twice/thrice the money let alone preparation. And it can't be preserved as well. But whatever, fuck the dystopian future. :)
- randallsquared 13y ago
  I'm struck, though, that the title indicates the author thought he was presenting the negatives!

TheShadowFog 13y ago

This sounds horrible.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

pvnick 13y ago

Wow! I've always had a thing for dystopian literature, and the world this article presents actually seems plausible. Two ideas I particularly found intriguing: -The idea of using an avatar to mask your true physical appearance. This seems like an appealing idea since changing your avatar on a settings panel is easier than keeping well-groomed and presentable. Perhaps citizens of the Google Glass world no longer feel the need to stay healthy and attractive? Could this level the playing field and take sexual attractiveness out of the picture altogether? Never again would someone be "out of your league." Will all our loving relationships be calculated and planned based on some OkCupid-esque compatibility algorithm? Perhaps a side-effect of this is a higher rate of sustainable marriages and a decreased divorce rate. So not completely bad and creepy. -The way the author claims "You know you have free will, but don’t feel like you need it." I've felt for a while that the more realistic dystopian future is closer to Brave New World than to 1984, in which people willingly give up their freedom rather than have it snatched away from them. Instead of saying "You know you have free will, but it doesn't really feel like it," Pananberg opts for the phrasing "don't feel like you need it." It seems to suggest that free will in a Google Glass world is a burden, and that giving up that freedom to a benevolent intelligence just feels easier. Either way, when I finished the article I pressed the "like" button, sending the event to my Facebook Timeline so that all my friends can stay connected with the things I find interesting and so that Facebook's Hadoop clusters can factor it into their advertising algorithms, allowing the company to more intelligently display products I would be interested in buying. I'll tell you one thing, that no longer includes Google Glass.

Blahah 13y ago
The avatar idea has been a staple of sci-fi for a long time, at least since Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992). Personally I don't find it creepy at all. Ever used SecondLife? Nothing about the scenario in the article actually suggests a loss of free will - if anything it suggests a gain of super-free will in which people are more able to have their desires fulfilled by accentuating and enhancing what the real world can offer.
- pvnick 13y ago
  >Nothing about the scenario in the article actually suggests a loss of free will - if anything it suggests a gain of super-free will in which people are more able to have their desires fulfilled by accentuating and enhancing what the real world can offer. At the end of the article, it depicts the people taking off their Glass only to find the real world bland and uncomfortable, quickly returning to the relative comfort of the virtual reality they've grown dependent on. These people can no longer cope with life on life's terms. If that's not a loss of free will then I don't know what is.

ireadqrcodes 13y ago

I think he got the "You’re constantly logged into Facebook ..." wrong. It will be google plus or something completely different

danabramov 13y ago

>The biophysio meter has been gauging the mood in the room, color coding them for convenience. Personally, you’ve always found that red hot conversations give you a headache while ice blue ones bore you to tears. The computer is able to pick up all the sounds in the room and sift through the conversations. You seek a color combination somewhat in the middle, a group of people not talking about sports or fashion. Actually, I want this.

anonymous 13y ago
+1. I always hate it when I enter a party and the violent cacophony of five or even ten simultaneous conversations hits me at once. And even when I find a group of people I can stand, there's this awful noise all around. It would be pretty awesome if glass could not only find the people for me, but also actively filter everybody else, so I can talk in relative quiet.
- angersock 13y ago
  Why not simply stay home, eat Doritos, drink Mountain Dew, and surf IRC? Sounds like you want all of the social without the part where you interact with society.
  - pvnick 13y ago
    I think what you just described actually sounds appealing to the HN crowd.
  - taejo 13y ago
    Or maybe there are different kinds of social interactions and some people prefer the "six friends sharing a meal" type to "a hundred people at a party". Just a thought.
  - anonymous 13y ago
    Because, insane as it sounds, I'm better at talking face to face, than typing over IRC. I just want it not so loud and obnoxious. Also, Doritos and Mountain Dew taste awful and are bad for you. I'd rather have a salad.

stared 13y ago

I think that when it comes to "the Google contact lenses dystopia" there is no better comment than a short movie "Sight" http://vimeo.com/46304267 http://vimeo.com/46304267. (It starts with gamification of cucumber cutting.)

mikesaraf 13y ago
Its funny that the game in the opening of "Sight", released 10 months ago, is similar to one they had at Google IO this year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqOluB4e-q4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqOluB4e-q4

nsmartt 13y ago

I'm particularly disturbed by the notion that I'll be a pariah if I don't have some form of profile for people to check. That sounds very plausible to me, and we're already seeing it on a significantly smaller scale.

weavejester 13y ago

The article picks a curious line to end on: "You know you have free will, but don’t feel like you need it." Which is odd, considering that the protagonist of the tale has done nothing but make choices throughout the whole story.

swombat 13y ago
Making choices out of a selection determined by someone else is not freedom. They have this freedom even in places like North Korea...
- randallsquared 13y ago
  Choices don't seem be to constrained. Rather, there is more information about the likely outcome of making many of the most likely choices. Seems like a huge win to me. I can still be ignored or turned off. It's still possible to just walk out and go elsewhere.
  - swombat 13y ago
    It's worth considering this dystopia in parallel with this the oft-quoted saying that "In the future, there will be two kinds of people: those who tell computers what to do, and those who are told what to do by computers". Then throw in this: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21578360-brain-work-may-be-going-way-manual-work-age-smart-machines http://www.economist.com/news/business/21578360-brain-work-m... Perhaps the first group will dwindle faster than we think.
    - weavejester 13y ago
      We're all told what to do by computers anyway, it's just that they happen to be 3lbs of squishy biomatter inside our skulls.
rbanffy 13y ago
When someone controls (and/or biases) the information feed you base your decisions upon, your will is no longer completely free. We used to call it news media ;-)

molex333 13y ago

This is a dream come true. Where do I sign up?

wittysense 13y ago

«For under the firm measure, The crude, too, is useful, That the pure may know itself.» -- Hoelderlin, The Titans A la Heidegger. Given the sensationalism in tone of this writing, it seems only Heidegger is appropriate as a forthright response. In a sense, we see two very crude tools: public surveillance via legislation or public surveillance via a device (which some "market") apparently demands. In all of the ways we have come to know and love, these are both problematical departures from a reality alluded to in the Internet Declaration of Independence. The old ways of thinking are an impasse. You must understand that the old ways of thinking are an impasse. In Heidegger's terms, such an impasse can be described by the fact that [we are the sign that is not read]. Moreover, that we are still not thinking, yet we are underway to thinking. «And let not much-current habit force you into this way, to let roam sightless eyes and noise-cluttered ear and [tongue*], rather discriminate in reflection . . .» I recently recall a short prose alluding to a fictional possible world, wherein the denizens of its society were allotted so many words per day. Debord may service as a modulation of Hedeigger's foreboding: «The self-emancipation of our time is an emancipation from the material bases of inverted truth. This “historic mission of establishing truth in the world” can be carried out neither by the isolated individual nor by atomized and manipulated masses, but only and always by the class that is able to dissolve all classes by reducing all power to the de-alienating form of realized democracy — to councils in which practical theory verifies itself and surveys its own actions. This is possible only when individuals are “directly linked to world history” and [dialogue*] arms itself to impose its own conditions.» Heidegger is a bit more optimistic, as he essentially must be: «"What is called thinking?" At the end we return to the question we asked at first when we found out what our word "thinking" originally means. _Thanc_ means memory, thinking that recalls, thanks [interjecting "Likes"!]. But in the meantime we have learned to see that the essential nature of thinking is determined by what there is to be thought about: the presence of what is present, the Being of beings. Thinking is thinking only when it _recalls_ in thought ἐόν, That which this word indicates properly and truly, that is, unspoken, tacitly. And that is the duality of beings and Being. This quality is what properly gives food for thought. And what is so given, is the gift of what is most worthy of question. Can thinking take this gift into its hands, that is, take it to heart, in order to entrust it in λέγειν, in the telling statement, to the original speech of language?»

AndrewKemendo 13y ago

>On your left is a woman you don’t know, but she’s a friend of a friend of your cousin Irving’s roommate’s niece. Her name is Tina, a physics professor at the local university, and she likes extreme skiing, origami and baking. Tomorrow she’ll be giving a presentation. You can view her slides and video now, if you’d like, and scan her bio. You don’t. You think it’s interesting that her favorite author is Jane Austen and thirty-seven people “liked” a post she penned on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. She’s sipping what the computer deduces to be a green apple martini and your Google-powered submicro-computer advertises a selection of snacks to go with it, as well as a choice of vodkas and mixers, which you can order at the blink of an eye. Maybe later. That sounds amazing! I would probably filter it to give me specific results because I'm not as interested in some of those things than others.

mwcampbell 13y ago

> The music from the wall speakers sounds tinny. Would there even be loudspeakers in such a world? If we all wore computers with earpieces, there would be no need for sound amplification as we know it now. I, for one, would welcome the end of music played over loudspeakers in public places, chosen according to someone else's idea of what music the masses would like.

TravisLS 13y ago

I'm surprised to see the attitude of this thread as so optimistic about this potential future. Even ignoring the government / police state possibilities, I found this terribly dystopian, and I imagine many others outside of the most optimistic tech bubbles would agree. While taken individually, many of the technologies presented in the story seem to be useful or even fun, the world they create is inescapably bland. And it's the inescapability of it that makes it so awful. While on the surface these theoretical advances provide value, they also potentially destroy the possibility of serendipitous interaction, of meeting someone incompatible, of having your perspective changed, of connecting with someone intimately. For me, the "problems" being solved by the tech in this story are much of what makes life worth living. While building technology, I think it's important to consider the effects and side effects of these things, and to focus on technology that improves and enhances our lives, rather than takes them over.

linhmtran168 13y ago

This will be the beginning of a world like in the Matrix. Gradually, it's Glass (or Lenses, or whatever) will control what we want to see, to hear and to choose. A world where everything is predictable to the computer and is comfortable to our liking. Well, I don't like that world.