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You are also talking about the benefits of massive surveillance without any reference to its cost. A society with no private sphere would, in particular, be ext

You are also talking about the benefits of massive surveillance without any reference to its cost. A society with no private sphere would, in particular, be extremely susceptible to authoritarianism. People have repeatedly written dystopias about that prospect for a reason. I do not see that any amount of whizz-bang nice things you can do with the data, like better social science research, will remove those consequences.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
My point is, everyone is talking only about the consequences. I'm perfectly aware of them (and so I don't see a point of mentioning them in my comment; everyone else keeps bringing them up). I'm definitely not advocating pushing blindly for more data collection. But then again, while authoritarianism is a real threat that needs to be addressed, some level of "privacy" people are so afraid to lose could probably be relinquished, yielding more benefit than harm.
- unclebucknasty 12y ago
  >some level of "privacy" people are so afraid to lose could probably be relinquished, yielding more benefit than harm But, I think the question is who gets to make that decision? Who gets to say how much should be relinquished and decide when there is more benefit than harm? You could say, "well, anyone who doesn't like it can elect not to use X technology." But, that will become increasingly difficult as more and more "core" technology adopts less privacy-oriented models. So, I am cautious about advocating an approach of continuing to push and erode privacy as long as there is some argument for additional benefit. I think it is very much a slippery slope and we have already experienced some of the slippage. A little privacy here. A little privacy there. And, it is difficult to walk it back. So, we are redefining what we consider a reasonable expectation of privacy as a society. Too much of that definition seems to be coming from commercial interests and, I believe, many people are feeling uncomfortable with the increasing erosion of their privacy and the decisions that are being made for them.
- krapp 12y ago
  Glass seems designed to make it impossible not to relinquish one's privacy. Granted, cellphones could conceivably be used is almost the same way, but they're not meant to be. If you're in the wearer's field of view, you give up whatever the technology can take. That's intentional, and the attempt to make that ubiquitous on the part of Google, a company whose entire reason for being is data collection, is also intentional. Even if there is a possible net benefit, there will also be, inevitably, be a loss of control over identity and autonomy that no one can be blamed for not wanting to give up without a fight (futile though it might be.)
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    My issue with Glass hate is that people say it's about the camera - it's not. It's about the fact that they know there's a camera. There's a lot of cheap cameras embedded in glasses, pens or even clothing, that anyone can buy from a random 'spy shop' down the corner. We're long past point of random stalkers filming people. So all that objections against Glass killed useful technology (AR) for zero real gain in privacy. > Even if there is a possible net benefit, there will also be, inevitably, be a loss of control over identity and autonomy that no one can be blamed for not wanting to give up without a fight (futile though it might be.) I think we'll have to learn how to live with that. I doubt that a lot will change though.
    - krapp 12y ago
      I think it's not so much even knowing there's a camera, but knowing there's a camera which might be on and streaming to the cloud at all times. Yes, I know there's a little light. No, no one is going to trust it. There aren't a lot of random spy shops down the corner, and not a lot of random stalkers sneaking upskirts of people on escalators with pen cameras hidden in their shoes. You could make the argument that cellphones are far more powerful as tools for surveillance (and they certainly are in regards to surveilling their owners) than Glass would have been capable of. And you would have a point - for maybe the first couple of generations, and before there were several million Glasses in the wild. At that point, being a random stalker becomes socially acceptable, and being randomly stalked becomes unavoidable. Consumer AR isn't entirely dead. I've seen it on portable game consoles. But Google's attempt to literally shove it into people's faces demonstrates that there are more than technical hurdles to overcome.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

My point is, everyone is talking only about the consequences. I'm perfectly aware of them (and so I don't see a point of mentioning them in my comment; everyone else keeps bringing them up). I'm definitely not advocating pushing blindly for more data collection. But then again, while authoritarianism is a real threat that needs to be addressed, some level of "privacy" people are so afraid to lose could probably be relinquished, yielding more benefit than harm.

unclebucknasty 12y ago
>some level of "privacy" people are so afraid to lose could probably be relinquished, yielding more benefit than harm But, I think the question is who gets to make that decision? Who gets to say how much should be relinquished and decide when there is more benefit than harm? You could say, "well, anyone who doesn't like it can elect not to use X technology." But, that will become increasingly difficult as more and more "core" technology adopts less privacy-oriented models. So, I am cautious about advocating an approach of continuing to push and erode privacy as long as there is some argument for additional benefit. I think it is very much a slippery slope and we have already experienced some of the slippage. A little privacy here. A little privacy there. And, it is difficult to walk it back. So, we are redefining what we consider a reasonable expectation of privacy as a society. Too much of that definition seems to be coming from commercial interests and, I believe, many people are feeling uncomfortable with the increasing erosion of their privacy and the decisions that are being made for them.
krapp 12y ago
Glass seems designed to make it impossible not to relinquish one's privacy. Granted, cellphones could conceivably be used is almost the same way, but they're not meant to be. If you're in the wearer's field of view, you give up whatever the technology can take. That's intentional, and the attempt to make that ubiquitous on the part of Google, a company whose entire reason for being is data collection, is also intentional. Even if there is a possible net benefit, there will also be, inevitably, be a loss of control over identity and autonomy that no one can be blamed for not wanting to give up without a fight (futile though it might be.)
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  My issue with Glass hate is that people say it's about the camera - it's not. It's about the fact that they know there's a camera. There's a lot of cheap cameras embedded in glasses, pens or even clothing, that anyone can buy from a random 'spy shop' down the corner. We're long past point of random stalkers filming people. So all that objections against Glass killed useful technology (AR) for zero real gain in privacy. > Even if there is a possible net benefit, there will also be, inevitably, be a loss of control over identity and autonomy that no one can be blamed for not wanting to give up without a fight (futile though it might be.) I think we'll have to learn how to live with that. I doubt that a lot will change though.
  - krapp 12y ago
    I think it's not so much even knowing there's a camera, but knowing there's a camera which might be on and streaming to the cloud at all times. Yes, I know there's a little light. No, no one is going to trust it. There aren't a lot of random spy shops down the corner, and not a lot of random stalkers sneaking upskirts of people on escalators with pen cameras hidden in their shoes. You could make the argument that cellphones are far more powerful as tools for surveillance (and they certainly are in regards to surveilling their owners) than Glass would have been capable of. And you would have a point - for maybe the first couple of generations, and before there were several million Glasses in the wild. At that point, being a random stalker becomes socially acceptable, and being randomly stalked becomes unavoidable. Consumer AR isn't entirely dead. I've seen it on portable game consoles. But Google's attempt to literally shove it into people's faces demonstrates that there are more than technical hurdles to overcome.