Glasshole
penny-arcade.com
penny-arcade.com
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.
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.
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.
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.
This illustrates why we can't let just let researchers and enthusiasts run wild with new (and old) privacy-impacting technology. Like nuclear and biomedical research, we need an ongoing public discussion about boundaries.
[0] http://lanmdagigi.en.ec21.com/offer_detail/Sell_The_smallest...
I'm curious about your point's effect on Glass: does it render Glass invalid or reduce its market in scope so that Glass is a press/media device? I suspect the latter.
But thinking further: what if, Science-Fiction-style, Glass were so small as to be invisible? Would we all act as if we were always being recorded? What would society be like?]
Perhaps our kids will grow up hating Glass.
By proxy, every Google Glass owner will be acting as a remote recording device for government agencies. Everyone in the line of site/hearing range of the device forfeits privacy.
Google Glass will show The Watchers exactly what the person is looking at. Even when the person takes it off and puts it on, say, a table surface, it will be showing something, as opposed to a phone which either points downward or up towards the ceiling.
I could go on. The point is that "everyone is already carrying a remote tracking and recording device" is hugely different in terms of both the scope and depth of surveillance that said offers when compared to Google Glass.
The latter is what worries me. If they come up with what they believe to be the right algorithm and run it against their data, what then? Are we then in the position where we have to a) prove our innocence in a crime that hasn't even been committed, or b) become the targets of increased scrutiny and restrictions?
I recognize it will give much more useful video stream. But it's an incremental increase in capability -- if they can already pinpoint your location with GPS and record all surface-level interhuman information exchange with microphones, they're already getting a very large section of what one would like to keep confidential.
Of course, it is important to note I don't believe PRISM is anywhere near as effective as many around here do.
But wearing an internet connected 3rd party controlled camera on your forehead is categorically different than one that points at the inside of my pocket almost all the time. If it were the same as what we have now then Google Glass wouldn't be a very interesting product, would it?
It all comes back to privacy being a sense of control over what someone releases to the world about themselves. Glass helps take away that control (as does secret NSA data collection). People are uncomfortable when someone else controls the release or collection of their personal data (images, whereabouts, friends, etc).
A lot of it comes true because someone says "yes, good idea".
Or, on the subject of Snow Crash, if only someone would make that thing in Snow Crash called Earth. (Though if they did make it and then Motorola bought it, I expect they'd name it Motorola Earth, which sounds dumb. Unless someone bought Motorola first.)
The fact that this is actually a link to the accompanying article from Tycho is great as his pieces are usually quite interesting but I miss out because they don't come up on the Penny Arcade website until a good few hours after the comic. It's infuriating actually, as the comic frequently makes me want to read what Tycho has to say but it's not there yet. I don't understand why they do that. Anyone?
If you're interested in games news, I've found the Penny Arcade Report to be fantastic. It hasn't been around long, but I several articles from it have already hit the front page of HN. http://penny-arcade.com/report/
But seriously, I remember early Gabe newsposts and they were just full of typos and spelling errors and I honestly lost a little respect for him. Then again, I was an arrogant little shite ten years ago, so don't read much into that.
I speculate that their "use model" is that you click refresh on the main site on MWF until the new essay comes up, then click through to the comic. Of course if you use an RSS feed or click refresh on the comic page, it makes less sense.
What I would like to see is coordination between the two by delaying the release of the comic and/or Tycho submitting his piece sooner so they're released in unison.
This is going to sound extremely unreasonable but whenever I read the comic and click to the article only to see what Tycho wrote about the comic of two days ago, I find myself thinking "Gabe's done his part! This art didn't draw itself! Where's the accompanying essay then?!".
JD(GM) out.
♬ Like an angry English teacher getting in a strop at a student for not bringing his coursework to class on the day I made them all write in their planners weeks ago.
This is a resistance that I'm sure is shared by many in the general public. It's something we all may get used to eventually, but I honestly predict a fairly grating and occasionally unpleasant transition period.
Not to me. It's the social equivalent of walking around holding your smartphone, recording everything. Sure, you might not actually be recording everything, but when you hold it up like that I have no idea if you are.
An audio-only version of glass may be more socially palatable.
Still though, it'll be interesting to see how this works when it is available for the common public. I personally feel that people wearing bluetooth headsets in public are sorta douchey-looking (just my personal impression), I wonder if that's going to be any different with Glass (I doubt it).
> "I realize that may sound a little luddite-esque to certain members of this community"
This does not sound luddite-esque to me at all, and entirely reasonable.
Now with glass-like tech, it's more subtle. You'll not only have to remove them, carrying an "always-on" camera in your hand might not resonate well either; you'll have to encase them away from light entirely.
Essentially, I think people would want some sort of indication that it's truly disabled in scenarios where they would be uncomfortable with it around. A whole new world of etiquette is about to open.
The last major change we had was with cell phones. That continues to evolve, decades after availability. I wonder what paths glass-tech etiquette will take?
I doubt it. The awareness and general resistance to glass has so-far spread faster than glass itself. If a glass that looked exactly like ordinary glasses came out, there would be both a general complaint and general suspicion of anyone wearing ordinary glasses.
It's doubtful that they could make glass invisible without even more complaints and if glass wasn't invisible, it would be noticed because what people expands based on the focus of their attention.
Glass is capturing full audio and video, in usable quality, of the person the wearer is interacting with.
Why would you bother when you can just by a micro camera today that is already easily concealed?
Honestly, Google Glass is being unfairly crucified here, the cat was already let of that bag a few years ago.
Basically... society will just be a bit uneasy [around people wearing glass]. Then, the first divorce case, or "loss of employment because of mistimed comment about ... say ... hispanics ... while at a bar" case will happen. At which point most people are going to start being VERY careful about who they talk to and where.
Generally when I read something and judge it to be pretentious, it's because the author is using words that are out of his/her depth, in an attempt to impress the reader. When Jerry writes I get the impression he's choosing his words carefully and with equal intent to entertain and to inform.
This is only based on the Penny Arcade comics I've seen that have gone viral, so perhaps it is not representative.
Or, as I'd say it:
Well, if I had to guess, I'd say he probably writes in a similar way to the way he speaks; or at least; the way he would like to speak if he had three minutes to think up every sentence he had to utter. This may not be such a good idea as it sounds, unless you have a term paper due, of course. Because human beings have been speaking for roughly the same time that we've been making jokes about funny shaped fruit, we have fantastic wiring in our noggins for translating the sounds we utter into thoughts, but simply don't have the same capacity to decode the same kind of syntax if it has been scratched on cave walls, or written on parchment, of displayed in glyphs on some kind of screen or whatever your medium of choice is for writing.
Perhaps Glass causes visceral reactions because of the combination of its foreignness (unlike glasses) and proximity to the face.
He's a really smart guy, and friendly, but his heads-up display came across as very distracting to me, mostly because of how it interfered with "intuitive" reading of eye gaze. When he was looking vaguely in my direction it was difficult to tell when he was looking "through" the heads-up display and focusing on me, and when he was focusing instead on the HUD. It made the whole conversation feel quite surreal.
Glass is hardly the problem there - if the conversation is interesting, people will turn off any music being played and ignore whatever is happening on Glass.
Not necessarily. People can be very distracted by cell phones which are normally kept in one's pocket or purse. Having glass on your face with visual pop-ups would be even more distracting, regardless of the conversation, because it would be a lot harder to ignore incoming alerts or other cues.
I know that my views on Glass (negative) would be a 180degree shift if it didn't have a camera mounted on it. I respect others' privacy and I feel pointing a camera is a form of "brandishing"
The only reason for the Glass diversion is Gabe got one this week as well and they are living with it.
I am not in the "if you don't have anything to hide crowd..." in the least and am certainly aware of the ability of those in power to abuse it. My take on it however is, I am going to just slough off the mores which I would have previously been concerned with privacy about.
Catch me swearing when I shouldn't have? Oh well. Maybe I'll be less inclined to do it next time. What if I whisper a dirty idea to my wife? Well, what's wrong with a happily married couple doing what they like after all?
After you have kids the idea of going to the bathroom in privacy slowly drifts out of the window - and why shouldn't it? It really doesn't make any ethical impact on me for someone to know if I am doing a biological process.
My hope is, all of this will make us much more honest people. You can't embarrass/blackmail me if I cannot be embarrassed/ashamed.
But what about people in less open societies, and who don't fit what society thinks should be the norm? For a gay man in a more conservative place, the "honesty policy" may imply great physical harm.
And even if you actually fit in to the stereotype of the Good Citizen, what about misunderstandings? What happens if a clip of a few seconds gets taken out of context of a conversation (even by accident), which makes you sound like you support some terrible thing, helpfully linked to your name by Google's algorithms?
The idea is that in a society that is basically completely honest and open no one will hold a "moral high ground" so it would basically be impossible for information asymmetry and thus natural variation would ensure that there is no "norm."
Again this is all hopeful, if doubtful.
Or hell, just a 'the camera is on' indicator. a red light, or a bit of plastic you can slide over the lens or something. (I mean, clearly, both of these things can be faked, but there are a thousand other ways to conceal a camera on your person, if you are being deceitful. The important bit is to make a clear way of setting the social expectation that the camera is on/off.) Personally, I'd favor some kind of physical lens block, as it guarantees my privacy (during the times I physically block the camera) even if the firmware is compromised.