I know this will get DVed but this seems like one of those things we'll look back on in 20yrs and "mostly" wonder what all the fuss was about.
AR cameras seem inevitable. They're strange today but ask any 2006 non-techie if they'd consider carrying a pocket computer and they'd laugh at you. Now they all have one and you'd likely only get them to part with it from their cold dead fingers.
The privacy issues are a huge consequence but IMO they won't stop the march of progress. Too many positives. First is they enable AR which full sci-fi AR seems eminently useful. 2nd, they'll likely help prevent all kinds of crime, especially once implanted or put in contact lenses. Rape, Muggings, theft, seem like they'd all go down in a world where AR cameras are as ubiquitous as smartphones. How do backroom deals, government conspiracies, corporate malfeasance stay private when everyone in the room is recording it? You could say "they'll be told to turn it off to participate" but I suspect as we get more and more dependent it will become near impossible to ask people to turn off their connections. They won't be able to effectively participate in the meeting with all referencing all the stuff their AR display gives them access to. Police brutality? All of it recorded.
Further, as a 2021 person used to privacy it scares the crap out of me for all my private activities with others to be recorded. But a generation of people that grew up with the AR will likely have no such reservations. They'll be used to having every sex act recorded.
So, while the privacy issues are real I feel like it's mostly like commanding the waves to stop crashing. Impossible. Better to just accept that it's coming and figure out how best to deal with it. I don't believe laws telling people they can't have it or use it will work. I know if you value your privacy that sucks but I doubt anything can be done to stop it from coming and I so I think it's better to embrace its arrival.
The world you're describing sounds like hell to me. I'd rather become Amish than live in it.
Also, I would point out that the advent of police cameras has by no means ended controversies over police brutality. It has simply revealed what should have been obvious: we do not agree about what constitues police brutality. I expect the same would be true when it comes to sex.
Completely agree. The GP reads like a really depressing form of fatalism: "I guess tech giants control the world now, and democracies have no say."
Also, a reality where everything is recorded all the time would enable some nightmarish forms of social control that it would seem hard to escape from. Imagine an abusive husband that insists on performing a daily review of all activities.
That doesn’t make sense, at least staying with your second sentence. Many examples of police brutality have come to light that would have otherwise been hidden had we had no cameras.
Especially since the average person will side with the police office the majority of the time. The fact that they're arguing over it instead is an improvement.
> Better to just accept that it's coming and figure out how best to deal with it.
No - I massively disagree with this
we're still at the forefront of the internet revolution , if we simply cave in on things like this, then all the subsquent generations will get the pain.
We can stop it if we say no - it is 100% NOT inevitable, we can choose as a society
"We" cannot choose "as a society" any more than an individual can choose not to consume fossil fuel products, or sweatshop labour, or child slavery (yes, child slavery, and you're benefiting from its fruits, too; where did the materials to build the computer you're reading this on come from?). The environment, the slate of available choices, are intentionally constrained in order to make a small number of people richer than even numerate HN readers can conceive.
Victim blaming consumers, or even the engineers who create the products that usher in our inevitable future, isn't useful. Well, OK -- I suppose it isn't inevitable, it's just not avoidable without the failure of several complex societal institutions dedicated to preventing the kind of grass-roots, bottom-up reorganization required to stop it.
Facebook will know you are in Idaho this week, not because you have a Facebook account, but because they’ve matched you in a shadow profile of a university friend that posted a picture of you 15 years ago, and you’ve been picked up on Joe Sixpack’s camera.
Yes. Finally use those antitrust laws to crush Facebook. Make it illegal for anyone to sell glasses that are not completely under its owners control. Also prohibit centralized storage. Prohibit centralized face recognition. And while you're at it, imprison everyone who was ever involved in mass surveillance...
Violence is always an option and ability for most humans, but we have laws and culture that prevent humans from doing those actions, and some places are better than others than this because of those legal and social differences. Similarly we can choose a similar future in regards to privacy, even with newly evolved tech with their privacy issues.
There is one example of a technology which was curbed because it infringed on privacy: high iso + IR video cameras in daylight. Sony had come out with a “camcorder” whose functions allowed people who wanted to take surreptitious up skirt videos (it was good under low light conditions and added IR light). This was a big problem in Japan so Sony took it off the market.
Now all cameras with IR suppress IR in good light conditions so as not to allow “see thru” capabilities.
> Better to just accept that it's coming and figure out how best to deal with it. I don't believe laws telling people they can't have it or use it will work.
Two things:
1. I will never accept this. Hell no. And under no circumstances will I give in to let them do their thing just because it's easier.
2. Laws telling people they can't use/have it will work. That's why we have laws, to coordinate certain behaviours when people refuse to act respectfully. Mask mandates and GDPR have been some very recent examples that had a drastic impact on how things are done, providing these laws are actually enforced. If they aren't enforced, that's a problem with your enforcement and not the laws.
And yes, to echo the sentiments of others in this thread: if everyday life becomes saturated with these invasive devices, I will be the one person asking them to switch them off during s conversation. Or run to the hills.
Sounds terrible. I'd love to see someone following Facebook employees around Surveillance Camera Man style, at the grocery store and as they eat dinner outside. I'm sure they wouldn't react poorly.
> ask any 2006 non-techie if they'd consider carrying a pocket computer and they'd laugh at you.
That depends on the question you ask, if you ask them if they want to carry a bulky device they will say no, but if you ask that the device will be very small, light, sleek and you can make calls and check email and browse the internet, almost everyone will say yes.
AR cameras seem inevitable. They're strange today but ask any 2006 non-techie if they'd consider carrying a pocket computer and they'd laugh at you. Now they all have one and you'd likely only get them to part with it from their cold dead fingers.
The privacy issues are a huge consequence but IMO they won't stop the march of progress. Too many positives. First is they enable AR which full sci-fi AR seems eminently useful. 2nd, they'll likely help prevent all kinds of crime, especially once implanted or put in contact lenses. Rape, Muggings, theft, seem like they'd all go down in a world where AR cameras are as ubiquitous as smartphones. How do backroom deals, government conspiracies, corporate malfeasance stay private when everyone in the room is recording it? You could say "they'll be told to turn it off to participate" but I suspect as we get more and more dependent it will become near impossible to ask people to turn off their connections. They won't be able to effectively participate in the meeting with all referencing all the stuff their AR display gives them access to. Police brutality? All of it recorded.
Further, as a 2021 person used to privacy it scares the crap out of me for all my private activities with others to be recorded. But a generation of people that grew up with the AR will likely have no such reservations. They'll be used to having every sex act recorded.
So, while the privacy issues are real I feel like it's mostly like commanding the waves to stop crashing. Impossible. Better to just accept that it's coming and figure out how best to deal with it. I don't believe laws telling people they can't have it or use it will work. I know if you value your privacy that sucks but I doubt anything can be done to stop it from coming and I so I think it's better to embrace its arrival.