Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

#21

Post by angersock » Sat, May 25, 2013, 2:57 PM UTC

anonymous wrote: post #18

danabramov wrote: post #10

>The biophysio meter has been gauging the mood in the room, color coding them for convenience. Personally, you’ve always found that red hot conversations give you a headache while ice blue ones bore you to tears. The computer is able to pick up all the sounds in the room and sift through the conversations. You seek a color combination somewhat in the middle, a group of people not talking about sports or fashion. Actu…

+1. I always hate it when I enter a party and the violent cacophony of five or even ten simultaneous conversations hits me at once. And even when I find a group of people I can stand, there's this awful noise all around. It would be pretty awesome if glass could not only find the people for me, but also actively filter everybody else, so I can talk in relative quiet.

Why not simply stay home, eat Doritos, drink Mountain Dew, and surf IRC?

Sounds like you want all of the social without the part where you interact with society.

Re: Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

#22

Post by angersock » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:05 PM UTC

How awful.

What exactly is the purpose of being here if all you are doing is somewhat stochastically deciding between a few sterile choices presented to you by a computer? Why bother interacting with people who's life experience is basically just ads and the most agreeable-seeming things they elected to participate in from their preferred social network?

How utterly fucking boring.

It's enough to make me want to live in a cabin in the woods with nothing but a 28.8 and some old Irix box to keep me and my dogs company. >:(

Re: Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

#23

Post by Blahah » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:05 PM UTC

pvnick wrote: post #8

Wow! I've always had a thing for dystopian literature, and the world this article presents actually seems plausible. Two ideas I particularly found intriguing: -The idea of using an avatar to mask your true physical appearance. This seems like an appealing idea since changing your avatar on a settings panel is easier than keeping well-groomed and presentable. Perhaps citizens of the Google Glass world no longer feel…

The avatar idea has been a staple of sci-fi for a long time, at least since Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992). Personally I don't find it creepy at all. Ever used SecondLife?

Nothing about the scenario in the article actually suggests a loss of free will - if anything it suggests a gain of super-free will in which people are more able to have their desires fulfilled by accentuating and enhancing what the real world can offer.

Re: Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

#24

Post by mtgx » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:07 PM UTC

I assume he wanted the readers to now think negatively about this future. I kind of like it. Plus, that's not just the "Google world". It's the Internet. Do you think you can just unplug from the Internet 10 years from now? Can you do it now? It's only going to get harder, especially for new generations that are born with it.

What does worry me about the future, is governments having total knowledge about every single person, no matter what they are doing, who they are, and what service they are using. Do you really think they will need Google for this? Sure, in a way companies like Facebook and Google are making their jobs a lot easier. But do you think this will matter when they will have quantum computers? They will be able to get signals from a billion actions you've done on the Internet, regardless of what service you used. Gmail and Facebook usage will just be some of the signals.

And what happens when governments have total knowledge about everyone, whether it's legal or not? What happens when the governments can predict with quantum computers the potential of committing every type of crime for every single person? Maybe you have a 0.0000001% to be a terrorist. Maybe a 1% chance to beat someone, and maybe a 5% chance to smoke pot. Do they arrest you now, or do they wait until the quantum computers predict it's 10%?

These discussions about privacy breaches from companies seem like mainly a distraction from the real issues to me. It reminds me of the outrage of gun owners who "want to defend against an oppressive government" and "protect the 2nd amendment", but don't make a sound when the government cancels the 4th, 5th or even the 1st amendment. Or the 6 months outrage of the media over Benghazi, while covering the AP spying story for like 3 days.

Google can't physically harm you or destroy your life. Governments can. I would worry more about that. A lot more.

Re: Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

#25

Post by Blahah » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:07 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #22

How awful. What exactly is the purpose of being here if all you are doing is somewhat stochastically deciding between a few sterile choices presented to you by a computer? Why bother interacting with people who's life experience is basically just ads and the most agreeable-seeming things they elected to participate in from their preferred social network? How utterly fucking boring. It's enough to make me want to live…

What? That's the opposite of what I take from the story (although the author was clearly intending it as dystopian). The Glass in the story is not removing options, it's adding them. It's just layering information over the real world to provide a deeper, not shallower, experience. Why do people feel that the boundaries of their limited un-enhanced experience are somehow desirable?

Re: Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

#26

Post by swombat » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:08 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #22

How awful. What exactly is the purpose of being here if all you are doing is somewhat stochastically deciding between a few sterile choices presented to you by a computer? Why bother interacting with people who's life experience is basically just ads and the most agreeable-seeming things they elected to participate in from their preferred social network? How utterly fucking boring. It's enough to make me want to live…

I think that's why the author calls it a dystopia.

Re: Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

#27

Post by Blahah » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:09 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #19

weavejester wrote: post #15

The article picks a curious line to end on: "You know you have free will, but don’t feel like you need it." Which is odd, considering that the protagonist of the tale has done nothing but make choices throughout the whole story.

When someone controls (and/or biases) the information feed you base your decisions upon, your will is no longer completely free. We used to call it news media ;-)

But it's the protagonist's own past choices that ultimately control what information he is fed. That, the environment, and some algorithms. Just like in the real world, but with a more egocentric concentration.

Re: Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

#28

Post by swombat » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:11 PM UTC

weavejester wrote: post #15

The article picks a curious line to end on: "You know you have free will, but don’t feel like you need it." Which is odd, considering that the protagonist of the tale has done nothing but make choices throughout the whole story.

Making choices out of a selection determined by someone else is not freedom. They have this freedom even in places like North Korea...

Re: Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

#29

Post by angersock » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:20 PM UTC

Blahah wrote: post #25

angersock wrote: post #22

How awful. What exactly is the purpose of being here if all you are doing is somewhat stochastically deciding between a few sterile choices presented to you by a computer? Why bother interacting with people who's life experience is basically just ads and the most agreeable-seeming things they elected to participate in from their preferred social network? How utterly fucking boring. It's enough to make me want to live…

What? That's the opposite of what I take from the story (although the author was clearly intending it as dystopian). The Glass in the story is not removing options, it's adding them. It's just layering information over the real world to provide a deeper, not shallower, experience. Why do people feel that the boundaries of their limited un-enhanced experience are somehow desirable?

It's layering information which may or may not be correct, and given people's natural laziness of decision it only increases the odds of filter bubbling--that is not a deeper experience.

All you are doing is being empowered to ignore things which don't match your advertising profile most closely, being empowered to ignore things outside your comfort zone (in 10 years, I'm sure this will be popular with the yuppies in SF who would like to even more easily ignore the homeless refugees of gentrification).

A basic part of the human experience--of being a complete person--is learning how to interact with other people who may or may not be easy to get along with, and exploring new things and perspectives on life. Nowhere in this vignette is there a suggestion that the Glass will help you learn to interact with other people (because it is set to minimize the presentation of those you aren't predisposed to get along with) or encounter new things (that aren't carefully cultivated by the big data engines).

Let's not even go into the privacy concerns here (because clearly nobody gives a chrome-plated fuck about that anymore), or the unfortunate, darker sides to this.

Re: Google Glass in 10 years: the view from dystopia

#30

Post by MrQuincle » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:23 PM UTC

Is that all for a dystopia? Technologies used to came with a risk incredibly higher. Nuclear warfare, etc. We are now talking about "cyber warfare". I've yet to see the first American killed by a Chinese or North-Korean hacker. And I think the term "cyber warfare" is entirely inappropriate, and does not do justice to the atrocities of a real war. If this is all what can be thought up about the negative impact of Google glasses, we have nothing to worry about.