[This is re-post. I posted this on the Concurring Opinions blog August 2nd, 2010.]
As mankind deploys increasing numbers of sensors, and makes more sense of this data, more of our secrets are revealed. In a world of greater transparency, will you be able to be you? Or will you feel obligated to mask who you are, drawn to the safety of the center of the bell curve?
Will a more transparent
society make you
average?
Imagine for a moment that
video feeds from street surveillance cameras are the blue puzzle pieces, your path
through life lit up by
your cell phone location as the green puzzle pieces and your Facebook social
network as the yellow puzzle pieces. Flicker the brown puzzle pieces and
Twitter, orange puzzle pieces. And maybe one day your energy consuming
devices in your home may be spewing out the magenta puzzle pieces. As
increasing volume and range of data converges, a colorful, highly revealing
picture of our lives will unfold, with or without our knowledge or
permission. Traditional physical sensors like credit card and license
plate readers are one thing. The human is the sensor, thanks to Web 2.0,
is altogether a different thing.
Unlike two decades ago, humans
are now creating huge volumes of extraordinarily useful data as they
self-annotate their relationships and yours, their photographs and yours, their
thoughts and their thoughts about you … and more.
With more data, comes better
understanding and prediction. The convergence of data might reveal your
“discreet” rendezvous or the fact you are no longer on speaking terms your best
friend. No longer secret is your visit to the porn store and the
subsequent change in your home’s late night energy profile, another telling
story about who you are … again out of the bag, and little you can do about it.
Pity … you thought that all of this information was secret.
How will mankind respond? Will
people feel forced to modify their behavior towards normal only because they
fear others may discover their intimate personal affairs? This is what
Julie Cohen and Neil Richards have worried about – the “chilling effect.”
Or, more optimistically, will
the world become more tolerant of diversity? Will we be willing to be
ourselves in a more transparent society?
Personally, I shiver at the
though of being on the hump … the hump of the bell curve. I hope for a
highly tolerant society in the future. A place where it is widely known I
am four or five standard deviations off center, and despite such deviance: my
personal and professional relationships carry on, unaffected.
And oh, by the way, more
goodness … diversity is good for resilience.
Miscellaneous: About the title
of this post: I just thought it was a funny expression. Other funny
expressions I enjoy include:
1) Kill all extremists.
2) When you can fake
sincerity, you have it made.
RELATED LINKS:
David Brin’s:
The Transparent Society
RELATED POSTS:
Six Ticks till
Midnight: One Plausible Journey from Here to a Total Surveillance Society
Santa’s
Surveillance Operations Center Enjoys Big Gains in 2008(*)
Ubiquitous
Sensors? You Have Seen Nothing Yet
USC School of
Cinematic Arts, “Imagine the World in 2050″
Van Halen, Risk
Management and Breaking the Law (Allegedly)
Transparency,
Privacy and Responsibility
P300 “Brain
Fingerprinting”: A Very Freaky Future Indeed
The Truth is Out
There … Way Out There … and Some Times it Should Be Left There
Responsible
Innovation: Designing for Human Rights
Podcast: The
Future of Privacy
Your Movements
Speak for Themselves: Space-Time Travel Data is Analytic Super-Food!
Puzzling: How
Observations Are Accumulated Into Context