5 ms·

So I just remembered that I actually have some personal experience with this issue. My girlfriend is getting her PhD in computer vision, and one of her labmates

by lmkg 13y ago

So I just remembered that I actually have some personal experience with this issue. My girlfriend is getting her PhD in computer vision, and one of her labmates was working on summarization algorithms (imagine a program that could take 6 hours of continuous footage, and spit out a 1-minute highlight reel). She volunteered to wear a camera for a day to gather data for him, and she asked me permission to do so while we were out & about during a weekend. I agreed (with conditions--blurred faces in the final paper), we took the footage, he published his paper, it was fine. Like a year later, someone else who is working in a similar field reached out to her labmate to ask for the raw data. Thankfully, he asked us if we were ok with it, because I kind of wasn't. I had agreed to let one person that I kind of knew already to see footage of me. I was slightly uncomfortable with the idea of 6 hours of me conversing with my girlfriend at a brewery being passed around between who knows how many labs, and appearing in who knows how many papers, over a period of who knows how many years. Cuz I mean, once you lose control over who has access to that data, even just a tiny bit, that genie isn't going back into that bottle. Not that there was anything to care about, it was just a brewery and playing with some legos at home, but I didn't like the idea of becoming The Guy, and data sets have a way of becoming institutions in that field. And it wasn't just me, either. We were in a semi-public space, there were other people in the background. I have no idea if they would be cool with being in an academic paper. Maybe they would be, but they never even knew they were being recorded, so it seemed kind of unfair to make that call for them. We eventually decided to not allow the data to be shared. So then her labmate asked if he could just send over the audio data. To which our response was "why are we only finding out now that thing was recording audio?" That left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. So I don't know if I have a point really, I'm just sharing my experience with this. The big issue for me is loss of awareness and loss of control. I know who or what is seeing me, because I can see them back; I can be aware if someone is setting up a camera, and leave or hide my face or ask them what they're doing. I'm (approximately) aware of who can observe me, and who has or will have access to those observations in the future. The troubling aspect of Glass is that it introduces an asymmetry that I feel is to my disadvantage: if someone observes me with Glass, access to that observation is potentially unbounded. This feels to me like a loss of control, and that's why Glass makes me uncomfortable.

ntumlin 13y ago
Personally, I don't have a problem with people seeing footage of me in public. Well, not too much. I've always thought that since 1) the recording is legal (AFAIK) and 2) I'm okay with it, everyone else should be and if they aren't, too bad. I've come to realize that this is a Terrible Thought. PRISM is (arguably) legal, and there are plenty of people that support it, yet I am completely against the program. This is probably just a me thing, but in case it isn't, just be aware that because you think being recorded in public is okay that everyone else is.
- showerst 13y ago
  The interesting thing about glass is how quickly it blurs the definition of 'public'. I know that anything I say out loud on a street corner is fair game, and (less explicitly) in a restaurant or bar, but what about a house party? At a friends' dinner table? While watering my back lawn in my gym shorts? Right now the obviousness of (most) recording sets the social norm at "don't point a camera at someone in most situations without consent". When the norm changes to "Always have the camera on and pointing, but please use your judgement about when to record", that will have some serious effects.
  - mitchty 13y ago
    Spot on, the issue that people have with the concept of everyone always recording (or at least being able to obtain what they saw over the past N minutes) has to do with an implicit part of the human social contract up until this point. Basically you could go outside in "public" and within legal bounds do what you wanted with minimal repercussions or lasting impact. But if someone with these devices records you, now there can be a permanent record of you doing, say dancing crazy at a street corner because you felt like it, and that can be associated with you forever. Yes you did this action in public, but up until these devices are ubiquitous, you likely had the ability to spot people recording you. In the future, anyone looking at you becomes a potential data broker. I don't foresee this doing anything but causing people to curb somewhat abnormal behavior in public for fear of the repercussions. Or who knows maybe everyone will start doing crazy stuff like dancing for no reason really badly and nobody will care because it doesn't matter and eventually blurs the line of "normal in public". eh, back to other stuff.

by lmkg 13y ago

ntumlin 13y ago

Personally, I don't have a problem with people seeing footage of me in public. Well, not too much. I've always thought that since 1) the recording is legal (AFAIK) and 2) I'm okay with it, everyone else should be and if they aren't, too bad. I've come to realize that this is a Terrible Thought. PRISM is (arguably) legal, and there are plenty of people that support it, yet I am completely against the program. This is probably just a me thing, but in case it isn't, just be aware that because you think being recorded in public is okay that everyone else is.

showerst 13y ago
The interesting thing about glass is how quickly it blurs the definition of 'public'. I know that anything I say out loud on a street corner is fair game, and (less explicitly) in a restaurant or bar, but what about a house party? At a friends' dinner table? While watering my back lawn in my gym shorts? Right now the obviousness of (most) recording sets the social norm at "don't point a camera at someone in most situations without consent". When the norm changes to "Always have the camera on and pointing, but please use your judgement about when to record", that will have some serious effects.
- mitchty 13y ago
  Spot on, the issue that people have with the concept of everyone always recording (or at least being able to obtain what they saw over the past N minutes) has to do with an implicit part of the human social contract up until this point. Basically you could go outside in "public" and within legal bounds do what you wanted with minimal repercussions or lasting impact. But if someone with these devices records you, now there can be a permanent record of you doing, say dancing crazy at a street corner because you felt like it, and that can be associated with you forever. Yes you did this action in public, but up until these devices are ubiquitous, you likely had the ability to spot people recording you. In the future, anyone looking at you becomes a potential data broker. I don't foresee this doing anything but causing people to curb somewhat abnormal behavior in public for fear of the repercussions. Or who knows maybe everyone will start doing crazy stuff like dancing for no reason really badly and nobody will care because it doesn't matter and eventually blurs the line of "normal in public". eh, back to other stuff.