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Yes, Glass may fail, but it seems obvious to me that the perpetual shrinking of technology is an unstoppable trend that was set in motion decades ago. It turns

by csallen 13y ago

Yes, Glass may fail, but it seems obvious to me that the perpetual shrinking of technology is an unstoppable trend that was set in motion decades ago. It turns out that computers, and phones, and recording devices, and the internet are all really useful technologies, and people like having access to them wherever they go with as little hassle as possible. As time approaches infinity, the likelihood of our brains becoming hosts to powerful artificial computers approaches 100%. It's going to happen. It already is happening. And it's been happening. Trying to stop it is impossible, and merely complaining about it gets us nowhere. I have no problem with a bit of pessimism, but if it's going to be so pervasive, I'd at least like it to be constructive or useful in some way. Less "omg this is happening" and more "this is happening, how can we adapt?"

repsilat 13y ago
> Yes, Glass may fail Even if Glass' victory is inevitable, it may not be wrong to oppose it. Opposition need not take its value from its chance of success -- delaying the inevitable has value, as does the simple fact of having acted morally. When asked to choose between the moral highground and the literal highground, many people take the former. I'm not convinced the two don't coincide here, but I don't see a problem with that position in theory.
Silhouette 13y ago
Trying to stop it is impossible, and merely complaining about it gets us nowhere. On the contrary. I fully expect that in many places, overtly creepy technology like Google Glass will shift a long-overdue privacy debate that seems to be gathering momentum. If technology like Google Glass becomes socially unacceptable and illegal, it will not become pervasive in the manner you described.
- csallen 13y ago
  If it became illegal, sure. The chances of that are almost nil though. Almost everyone carries a camera with them nowadays, and public cameras have been commonplace for decades. It if becomes socially unacceptable, then it's just a matter of time. People don't like Glass because it looks clunky, nerdy, and distracting. What happens when technology improves to the point where it looks like a normal pair of glasses? What happens when we can put a chip in a contact lens? A phone in your brain? Your brain in a robot?
  - krapp 13y ago
    >Almost everyone carries a camera with them nowadays, Yes but they don't point that camera directly at everyone they talk to, all the time. >People don't like Glass because it looks clunky, nerdy, and distracting. I think it looks kind of nice for what it is. It's still creepy though. >What happens when we can put a chip in a contact lens? A phone in your brain? Your brain in a robot? OK... those last two are just bad ideas all around. In any case though I personally am less concerned with the form factor or the technology as I am the premise that concerns about privacy are irrelevant because the surveillance gear is ever advancing in complexity.
    - csallen 13y ago
      When you go out in public you quite often have cameras pointed at you. You just don't care because out-of-sight, out-of-mind. If those same public cameras were extracted from ceilings and placed on extremely conspicuous tripods sitting on the ground, I bet people would feel less comfortable, despite little having changed. Reminds me of the guy who got kicked out of the Seattle restaurant a few weeks ago for refusing to remove Glass. The restaurant said it didn't want to open its customers up to the possibility of being recorded without their consent. Of course, on the restaurant's very own Facebook page were numerous shots of customers dining, many of which were obtained without any knowledge or consent. The hypocrisy was lost on them, unfortunately. People underemphasize form and overemphasize function. When it comes down to it, most of us are being photographed all the time. Exponentially more-so today than anyone was 100 years ago. And with the rise of smartphones, substantially more-so today than anyone was even 10 years ago. Smart glasses are merely another rung on the ladder. Every argument you make could have been made for smartphones as well.
      - Silhouette 13y ago
        Everything you say might be factually true, but it doesn't follow that no-one has been bothered by it until now. Some of us have been raising concerns about things like pervasive surveillance by governments and/or big businesses for some time. But the issues aren't sufficiently well understood yet by the general population, nor directly harming a large enough subset of that population, for most people to feel strongly about them. Particularly with the relative hardship many have faced over the past few years, they are quite understandably more concerned about things like keeping a roof over their head and putting food on their children's plates. But every now and then you see people up in arms over things like how much it costs for a new driver to get the (legally required) insurance in the UK today, and you get a glimpse of where we're heading if we continue on our current course. A disproportionate number of the people I know personally who already share similar cautious views to my own are involved with technology. I suspect this is because of the awareness we share of how technology and in particular all this data could be used, even if the data is merely being collected today and not yet exploited. Most people don't realise the full implications of what is already happening yet, so they aren't concerned enough to act today, but that doesn't necessarily mean they would still be OK with something if they were fully informed or knew that it would eventually affect them or their loved ones and not just other people.

by csallen 13y ago

repsilat 13y ago

> Yes, Glass may fail Even if Glass' victory is inevitable, it may not be wrong to oppose it. Opposition need not take its value from its chance of success -- delaying the inevitable has value, as does the simple fact of having acted morally. When asked to choose between the moral highground and the literal highground, many people take the former. I'm not convinced the two don't coincide here, but I don't see a problem with that position in theory.

Silhouette 13y ago

Trying to stop it is impossible, and merely complaining about it gets us nowhere. On the contrary. I fully expect that in many places, overtly creepy technology like Google Glass will shift a long-overdue privacy debate that seems to be gathering momentum. If technology like Google Glass becomes socially unacceptable and illegal, it will not become pervasive in the manner you described.

csallen 13y ago
If it became illegal, sure. The chances of that are almost nil though. Almost everyone carries a camera with them nowadays, and public cameras have been commonplace for decades. It if becomes socially unacceptable, then it's just a matter of time. People don't like Glass because it looks clunky, nerdy, and distracting. What happens when technology improves to the point where it looks like a normal pair of glasses? What happens when we can put a chip in a contact lens? A phone in your brain? Your brain in a robot?
- krapp 13y ago
  >Almost everyone carries a camera with them nowadays, Yes but they don't point that camera directly at everyone they talk to, all the time. >People don't like Glass because it looks clunky, nerdy, and distracting. I think it looks kind of nice for what it is. It's still creepy though. >What happens when we can put a chip in a contact lens? A phone in your brain? Your brain in a robot? OK... those last two are just bad ideas all around. In any case though I personally am less concerned with the form factor or the technology as I am the premise that concerns about privacy are irrelevant because the surveillance gear is ever advancing in complexity.
  - csallen 13y ago
    When you go out in public you quite often have cameras pointed at you. You just don't care because out-of-sight, out-of-mind. If those same public cameras were extracted from ceilings and placed on extremely conspicuous tripods sitting on the ground, I bet people would feel less comfortable, despite little having changed. Reminds me of the guy who got kicked out of the Seattle restaurant a few weeks ago for refusing to remove Glass. The restaurant said it didn't want to open its customers up to the possibility of being recorded without their consent. Of course, on the restaurant's very own Facebook page were numerous shots of customers dining, many of which were obtained without any knowledge or consent. The hypocrisy was lost on them, unfortunately. People underemphasize form and overemphasize function. When it comes down to it, most of us are being photographed all the time. Exponentially more-so today than anyone was 100 years ago. And with the rise of smartphones, substantially more-so today than anyone was even 10 years ago. Smart glasses are merely another rung on the ladder. Every argument you make could have been made for smartphones as well.
    - Silhouette 13y ago
      Everything you say might be factually true, but it doesn't follow that no-one has been bothered by it until now. Some of us have been raising concerns about things like pervasive surveillance by governments and/or big businesses for some time. But the issues aren't sufficiently well understood yet by the general population, nor directly harming a large enough subset of that population, for most people to feel strongly about them. Particularly with the relative hardship many have faced over the past few years, they are quite understandably more concerned about things like keeping a roof over their head and putting food on their children's plates. But every now and then you see people up in arms over things like how much it costs for a new driver to get the (legally required) insurance in the UK today, and you get a glimpse of where we're heading if we continue on our current course. A disproportionate number of the people I know personally who already share similar cautious views to my own are involved with technology. I suspect this is because of the awareness we share of how technology and in particular all this data could be used, even if the data is merely being collected today and not yet exploited. Most people don't realise the full implications of what is already happening yet, so they aren't concerned enough to act today, but that doesn't necessarily mean they would still be OK with something if they were fully informed or knew that it would eventually affect them or their loved ones and not just other people.