Why Tech’s Best Minds Are Very Worried About the Internet of Things
wired.com
wired.com
In the case of the car and the phone, they've added complexity (a service layer) and I think its worked out well. The user gets to do what users should do and businesses grow doing what they do best. When it comes to IoT, my first thoughts always drifts towards "will this make things better, or could we muck up what once "just worked"?
We're entering a time where we have the technology, capital and reach to create and distribute new products and services at massive scale. Now that ideas are less constrained by "how", and compete on the "what", do we need to stop and ask ourselves not "Can we do it?", but "Should we do it?"
We can see this in many disrupted industries now, where new ideas, innovation and competition have shook up traditional business models. Whats left in their wake is not always better than what preceded it.
Ill use the social media ad driven business epoch as an example, was that a net positive for us as people? Or did we add a layer of complexity to the web that is now dedicated to delivering Upworthy blog posts, selling our personal information and a constant stream of Coca Cola ads? Is that a good trade off for pictures of Grandma, news from friends and Likes from everyone?
Do we already evaluate technology on these terms, or has our current state driven us to cobble together any business model that works?
The idea of removing user serviceable parts is tenable, but basically boils down to saving a sliver of people from shooting themselves in the foot while raising the total cost of ownership for everyone.
The problem with discussing this is that the technical mechanisms for making external service mandatory rather than common is that sometimes the reasoning isn't necessarily to enable a business model leveraging exclusive access. So measures taken to for that reason contort themselves to pretend like they're not that. They sneak it in alongside a chance that does bring me value but pretend like they're intrinsically linked, even when they're not.
A dipstick replaced by a computerized sensor to the in-dash readout, or iphones in a world where everyone who wants to fiddle around gets an android device are relatively benign examples.
I can do some car maintenance, but if I needed a new clutch I'd take it in to get serviced. The fact that my brother can and would replace his own clutch keeps costs down at the shop for me. The fact I can go to a mechanic not licensed by Ford keeps costs down. The fact I can buy off-brand parts for many simple service jobs keeps costs down.
My co-worker bought a replacement battery for his car but couldn't install it himself, it cost him 2 hours of service available only from the dealership to get the car's DRM switched to the new battery. I don't consider this state of affairs and trajectory we're on at large "working out well."
Some of the questions that come up for me are what happens to all these Lithium coin cell batteries, the PCB boards and chips as all these $5 devices die and are discarded? We already hear sad stories about where cell phones and other electronics go to die. It seems like these devices will be cheaper and thus the population of the devices will outstrip cell phones and other electronics by orders of magnitude. As much as we can worry about “potential” security and misuse issues there is a clear need for stewardship of all these devices that will be pumped out en masse into our world. I don't think RoHS[1] was developed with this level of scale in mind and density of devices.
Often I imagine being Geordi La Forge[2] with electromagnetic vision and how all these devices will be cramming our lives with more electromagnetic noise. It's not clear to me we understand the effects of this on everything from health to un-intended side effects to other technology.
I’m not saying I won’t do something in IOT, I’m saying we should all be thinking more about the overall effects of these types of technology as they scale.
IMHO nothing will stop the development and deployment of IOT devices. The smartphone is a perfect example, if people find usefulness in a technology it’s adoption is almost guaranteed.
Perhaps we need an open dialog on IOT best practices and how each of us can contribute to some level of thoughtfulness around these technologies as they develop in our world.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substa... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge#Appearances
There was a time back a few years ago, before the "big Internet" companies where technology was a utility, not an activity. Becoming an activity is dangerous and the more little distractions these devices cause, the further the problem with escalate.
It all reminds me of the following scene from The Fifth Element: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnzzWGcdMqY (technology cannot help him).
Remember that there's a difference between "The Internet" and "The World Wide Web". The WWW is now basically just a user interface platform for internet-enabled applications. The Internet is all the things that make the WWW work. So how will the IoT affect the WWW? In theory, once your toaster is Internet-capable, you could schedule toast every morning from your iPhone (has anyone yet patented a slot-loading bread box/toaster? probably.). Very Jetsons.
From ideas like this we get the broad-reaching declarations that "The IoT will change everything!" But being realistic for a moment, think about all the devices you have now, and how they work. Does it all come together magically? Or do you still have five remote controls for all your entertainment equipment? Do you pay rent in apartments that have 15-year-old bargain-bin appliances? Is your watch synced to the USNO clock? Does your car even have bluetooth?
I don't know about you, but I still live in a pre-Internet world. All my devices and appliances are still completely independent mechanisms. Even the devices that are Internet-capable don't communicate with one another; they're made by independent companies for independent purposes, and nobody's even attempting to find ways to combine them; that would probably require whole separate R&D divisions just to create add-ons.
What would be nice is if somebody started by identifying the major problems in our lives that actually need an Internet of Things solution. But then we'd expose the true identity of the IoT: a hammer looking for a nail. I'm pretty sure that it's only purpose now - as an idea - is to serve as a marketing platform to get people to spend money on things that don't do anything.
Worse, a marketing platform for things that don't do anything but break after 2 years. Even if the hardware lasts, there will always be unpatched security issues.
By and large, the good things that come out of IoT will be larger in number to the not so good things, by virtue of the fact that folks are generally designing these things to do useful things. We know that because every technology that has been developed, its intent leads to a skewed distribution of 'good' or 'bad' uses. For example 'cars' many more 'good' uses than 'bad' uses, 'bombs' many more 'bad' uses than 'good' uses. Some things which are just a basic discovery like 'plastic' about an equal number of good and bad uses.
I am completely not persuaded that "developing nations won't benefit" as a stand in for 'bad'. There are two ways that argument fails for me, if this stuff is going to be a huge enabler, why is the article so glum? If its going to be a huge problem isn't not having access to it a benefit? That there will be groups where it will be structurally impossible for them to get this technology at the same time is probably a good thing from a future planning perspective.
http://www.stavros.io/posts/arduino-powered-irrigation-syste...
I live in Illinois and my grandmother lives in Central Florida. I installed a Nest thermostat, Protect sensors, as well as an IP-enabled sprinkler controller (http://www.roslen.com/products.html). I can manage her entire home remotely for her, so when she calls, its "click click all done".
The "Internet Of Things" is already here.
You don't think that's a little over-simplistic?
Last year, cars killed ~1.2 million people around the world.
From explosive incidents, it's hard to tell, but doing some quick Google it seems to hover around 50,000 per year.
Cars also probably cause climate change, bombs don't. Cars get us around quicker, but at the cost of our health.
Bombs can end wars, and we quickly reached nuclear neutrality after the cold war.
Bombs are great in comparison to the automobile.
For instance, if McDonalds disappeared overnight, people would starve. Doesn't mean the McChicken is a "good" thing we should let incept our culture, like the Internet of Things, which is what this article is arguing is actually "bad."
Just because we can become dependent upon something easily doesn't mean it really makes the world a better place.
When debating the SF ordinance about the relative health benefits of "Happy Meals" questions came up like "Does Ronald McDonald house help more people with cancer than Big Macs make fat?" or "Do jobs provided by McDonalds to an otherwise unskilled population lower the crime rate?"
Debating the philosophical aspects of things can be enlightening but in this particular case, and in this particular article, that really wasn't the case. "Experts are worried" is just about as non-useful a statement as can be made about anything.
The observation I make is that *in totality of changes caused" by a technology, those that were created to do 'good' and or 'useful' [1] things generally have more good and useful uses than evil and/or threatening uses. I expect that to be true of the emerging IoT technology as well (more useful things than bad things).
Another interesting side effect is that if the balance shifts things can be made less useful, the case of decongestants comes to mind.
[1] In quotes because they are subjective measures.
It's very hard to tell wether something does "more good than bad."
But we can look at the history of technology and predict which areas of research tend to create the most elegant results. Medical technology is a great example. Alleviation of useless suffering.
It can be made good because it is, at its heart, science. Internet of Things is not so. The products IoT creates will be by companies trying to extract capital from customers.
There's no science to IoT, there's no elegant beauty, and there's a tremendous risk of extending the NSA's vision even deeper into our lives.
"It's very hard to tell wether something does 'more good than bad.'"
If you ask the population using the technology in question if its more good than bad they will answer "yes" or "no". If 51% of them think it is more good than bad, then by definition it is more good than bad.
"With IPv6, the explosion of the Internet of Things, and all the data generating apps that are there for smart phones, and coming for smart cars, smart refrigerators, etc, each and every person (and object) will begin to be surrounded by a datasphere of archived data. That datasphere will be mined by what I call the "The Invasion of the Data Snatchers". This is beyond government surveillance, and the rules and regulations about (a) privacy of one's datasphere, and (b) the terms of access (much given away via the "I accept" button on apps) are not in place. We are not even sure how they should be fashioned, and who (at what level) should administer them. The most problematic area here is service providers who have to assess risk (car, health, house insurance). We are already seeing denial of service to individuals, based on access to one's personal datasphere (e.g. cardio wrist band data resulting in denial of travel insurance). What happens when health insurance engages in health surveillance via one's networked refrigerator, and car insurance via one's vehicle? "
Relevant part of the interview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6vacuBHYVE
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7757708
*GE is a just a stand in here.
How close are we to the point where you can't buy a "non-internet enabled" TV?