Through the Looking Glass (Google Glass) – Part 3
Last week, for one day only, Google opened up its Explorer Program to the general public, letting anyone who wanted throw down fifteen-hundred bucks and get Google Glass. Being a time-traveller from the future interested in taking part in some of the significant events of the early twenty-first century, I dropped some cash, and am now waiting (im)patiently for my package of wonder to arrive. You might remember that some of the first articles I wrote for Dorkadia were all about Google Glass and the future we might be facing because of Augmented Reality technologies like it. If you do remember that, I’ll be extremely fucking surprised, and you should comment here and let me know why it is you keep reading my terrible articles.
So far I’ve received two major reactions when telling people that I ordered Glass. The first is far easier for me to understand – “Can I try them?” Sure, of course you can try them. It’s an alpha version of a new gadget, you use that for fun, dreaming big, and playing around with your friends. I’m excited to take some videos and pictures, have texts pop up in my field of view, and get street level directions when I’m walking around, as are the other people that fall into this category. We might dream about doing some kind of art project with the technology, like make a first-person perspective movie or something of that nature. In general, we’re just excited about the new pieces of functionality that Glass offers, and excited about creating some new games with them.
However, there’s a whole other category of people that I’ve read about, but before announcing that I’d actually bought Glass, had never encountered. This group responds with what seems to be a deep seated discomfort about the device and its implied secret surveillance capabilities. They don’t seem to care about Glass’s other features, or simply discount them as unimportant, “My phone can already do that.”, or “I prefer to use my technology, not have my technology use me.”
In my second article on Glass, I talk quite a bit about the future dystopias this technology opens up, so I can certainly understand the darker uses of AR and its forerunners. What I don’t understand is that the discomfort seems to exist at a non-cerebral level – it becomes emotional and very reactive. In San Francisco there have been 2 assaults on Glass users, with the assaulters taking the device and smashing it. Of course, in SF, this is the result of a deeper struggle occurring in the city over gentrification of neighborhoods and the emergence of a new crowd of technostocracy, with employees of Facebook and Google and other tech companies appearing to demand a different level of treatment than the average citizen of SF. But so far the violence has centered around Glass and its role in social code as an elitist/creeper identifier.
I don’t understand that level of emotional response to nearly any technology (other than nukes and biowarfare I guess). New tech either makes me excited or bored, but very rarely angry, and technology that provides some new type of surveillance is no exception. Without some type of serious “society collapses” kind of event, we are never, ever moving back to a time period where there is LESS surveillance than there is right now. It’s just too technologically convenient to put cameras on everything. Our tech is going to continue to get smarter and MORE perceptive, it’s never going back in the opposite direction. The way to fight the encroaching dystopias is not to get angry, but to get involved. Develop an ad-blocker for Glass. Go to local community meetings and ask “How do we want this tech to be used in our public spaces? How do we want it to be applied to law enforcement?” Write to your Senators and Representatives.
In all things, fighting the future is the same as commanding the tide to turn back. It’s not going to work and you’re just going to get wet trying it. Don’t fight the wave – ride it and guide it. Our only hope of living in a technological utopia is if we react with cautious optimism, and apply critical thinking to our future choices. Anger and kicking people out of your bar won’t cut it. Those sort of things might help hold back Glass, but what about Glass version 5, which is an optical nerve implant, or something else of that nature? This is happening, so let’s choose wisely.
Courtesy of Cyanide & Happiness (http://explosm.net/)
