So I just remembered that I actually have some personal experience with this issue. My girlfriend is getting her PhD in computer vision, and one of her labmates was working on summarization algorithms (imagine a program that could take 6 hours of continuous footage, and spit out a 1-minute highlight reel). She volunteered to wear a camera for a day to gather data for him, and she asked me permission to do so while we were out & about during a weekend. I agreed (with conditions--blurred faces in the final paper), we took the footage, he published his paper, it was fine.
Like a year later, someone else who is working in a similar field reached out to her labmate to ask for the raw data. Thankfully, he asked us if we were ok with it, because I kind of wasn't. I had agreed to let one person that I kind of knew already to see footage of me. I was slightly uncomfortable with the idea of 6 hours of me conversing with my girlfriend at a brewery being passed around between who knows how many labs, and appearing in who knows how many papers, over a period of who knows how many years. Cuz I mean, once you lose control over who has access to that data, even just a tiny bit, that genie isn't going back into that bottle. Not that there was anything to care about, it was just a brewery and playing with some legos at home, but I didn't like the idea of becoming The Guy, and data sets have a way of becoming institutions in that field.
And it wasn't just me, either. We were in a semi-public space, there were other people in the background. I have no idea if they would be cool with being in an academic paper. Maybe they would be, but they never even knew they were being recorded, so it seemed kind of unfair to make that call for them. We eventually decided to not allow the data to be shared.
So then her labmate asked if he could just send over the audio data. To which our response was "why are we only finding out now that thing was recording audio?" That left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.
So I don't know if I have a point really, I'm just sharing my experience with this. The big issue for me is loss of awareness and loss of control. I know who or what is seeing me, because I can see them back; I can be aware if someone is setting up a camera, and leave or hide my face or ask them what they're doing. I'm (approximately) aware of who can observe me, and who has or will have access to those observations in the future. The troubling aspect of Glass is that it introduces an asymmetry that I feel is to my disadvantage: if someone observes me with Glass, access to that observation is potentially unbounded. This feels to me like a loss of control, and that's why Glass makes me uncomfortable.
Personally, I don't have a problem with people seeing footage of me in public. Well, not too much. I've always thought that since 1) the recording is legal (AFAIK) and 2) I'm okay with it, everyone else should be and if they aren't, too bad. I've come to realize that this is a Terrible Thought.
PRISM is (arguably) legal, and there are plenty of people that support it, yet I am completely against the program. This is probably just a me thing, but in case it isn't, just be aware that because you think being recorded in public is okay that everyone else is.
The labmate recorded 6 hours of audio on you without your prior knowledge? That sort of thing can be downright illegal. That lab should have had some adult supervision.
This illustrates why we can't let just let researchers and enthusiasts run wild with new (and old) privacy-impacting technology. Like nuclear and biomedical research, we need an ongoing public discussion about boundaries.
Glass is simply paving the way for the future forcing us to deal with the privacy and social issues now. Eventually we will have video recording devices smaller than a grain of rice. What then?
That's a very nice point and is one I had not considered. In hindsight, it's an obvious point, but the best points always are.
I'm curious about your point's effect on Glass: does it render Glass invalid or reduce its market in scope so that Glass is a press/media device? I suspect the latter.
But thinking further: what if, Science-Fiction-style, Glass were so small as to be invisible? Would we all act as if we were always being recorded? What would society be like?]
I've been trying not to get too worked up over the whole NSA/PRISM issue, but the potential success Google Glass changes the magnitude of the issue.
By proxy, every Google Glass owner will be acting as a remote recording device for government agencies. Everyone in the line of site/hearing range of the device forfeits privacy.
Everyone is already carrying a remote tracking and recording device called a cell phone, optionally including video (which may or may not be useful). Admittedly Glass gives a much better vantage point for videos, but that's the only added aspect.
The companies implicated in PRISM already produce the software and/or hardware for the vast majority of computers and smartphones in the world. Seems like if you are convinced that PRISM is as far reaching and effective as being able to turn Glass in a remote recording device for the NSA, the magitude would hardly change much.
Glass makes it so much more convenient to record others. While you can do this with smartphones, the process is so much more obvious with those devices. Most people won't know if they're being recorded or not with Glass. And by putting the device close to your face, it's less likely someone will try to move it aside or block it.
It all comes back to privacy being a sense of control over what someone releases to the world about themselves. Glass helps take away that control (as does secret NSA data collection). People are uncomfortable when someone else controls the release or collection of their personal data (images, whereabouts, friends, etc).
In Kim Stanley Robinson's 1993 sf novel "Red Mars" a member of the first Mars colonization mission also works for news agencies back on Earth and wears "camera glasses". I forget the exact arc of the subplot but as I recall they resign and refuse to wear the 'glasses' anymore because they were ostracized by the rest of the crew.
I was amazed to see this on the front page, assuming it was a link to today's comic, which would possibly have been the first time I witnessed a non-xkcd submitted to HN. That would've been cool, it's a good one.
The fact that this is actually a link to the accompanying article from Tycho is great as his pieces are usually quite interesting but I miss out because they don't come up on the Penny Arcade website until a good few hours after the comic. It's infuriating actually, as the comic frequently makes me want to read what Tycho has to say but it's not there yet. I don't understand why they do that. Anyone?
The writing on Penny Arcade has always been insightful and funny. I think being great writers is what makes them great comic artists.
If you're interested in games news, I've found the Penny Arcade Report to be fantastic. It hasn't been around long, but I several articles from it have already hit the front page of HN. http://penny-arcade.com/report/
The Tycho essay is on the main URL and (almost?) always contains a link to the day's comic. So the essay can't come out ahead of time.
I speculate that their "use model" is that you click refresh on the main site on MWF until the new essay comes up, then click through to the comic. Of course if you use an RSS feed or click refresh on the comic page, it makes less sense.
It will take a while before I am comfortable with others wearing Glass around me. The thought of speaking to someone wearing the device makes me a little uncomfortable. I realize that may sound a little luddite-esque to certain members of this community, but there you have it.
This is a resistance that I'm sure is shared by many in the general public. It's something we all may get used to eventually, but I honestly predict a fairly grating and occasionally unpleasant transition period.
> The thought of speaking to someone wearing the device makes me a little uncomfortable. I realize that may sound a little luddite-esque to certain members of this community, but there you have it.
Not to me. It's the social equivalent of walking around holding your smartphone, recording everything. Sure, you might not actually be recording everything, but when you hold it up like that I have no idea if you are.
An audio-only version of glass may be more socially palatable.
Still though, it'll be interesting to see how this works when it is available for the common public. I personally feel that people wearing bluetooth headsets in public are sorta douchey-looking (just my personal impression), I wonder if that's going to be any different with Glass (I doubt it).
It's common to walk around naked in locker rooms at gyms and what-not. I make it a point to remove my sunglasses before entering just so others can see my eyes, otherwise you'll come off as creepy. I've never seen anyone try to snap a photo with their phone either (never a good idea near people in-shape).
Now with glass-like tech, it's more subtle. You'll not only have to remove them, carrying an "always-on" camera in your hand might not resonate well either; you'll have to encase them away from light entirely.
Essentially, I think people would want some sort of indication that it's truly disabled in scenarios where they would be uncomfortable with it around. A whole new world of etiquette is about to open.
The last major change we had was with cell phones. That continues to evolve, decades after availability. I wonder what paths glass-tech etiquette will take?
It's not like CCTVs are pervasive already. Anyways, they'll eventually get Glass down to where it's unnoticeable, then the awkwardness will disappear even if...the problem still exists.
I think there is good discussion to be had here, but holy shit, I have never been able to get over how utterly pretentious Jerry's writing is. The comics are usually fantastic and at strange odds with the accompanying news.
It has never occurred to me to call the way Jerry writes "pretentious." Most of the time I would call it "comedic" (specifically, containing great amounts of bathos)--he makes very creative, unexpected, and over-the-top use of the English language to convey relatively normal opinions on relatively boring subjects, in a way that makes me want to read his thoughts on things I couldn't otherwise care less about.
It's always been my understanding that he writes that way simply because he enjoys it, and he's perpetually incredulous that he can make a living doing so.
I've always found the comic pretentious and unfunny. Probably because a character almost always is given a mouth-breathing look of stupidity in at least one panel. The joke of the comic has always seemed to be, "look at this thing I've seen people doing, wow that's idiotic, here's the flawed thinking that led to that."
This is only based on the Penny Arcade comics I've seen that have gone viral, so perhaps it is not representative.
I dunno. His writing has always seemed extremely persona-driven: that is, he's still Tycho when he writes the news items. It's deliberately inflated with self-importance, to give the sense of a snobbish art critic in an area where that kind of persona is rare and a little absurd. I find it amusing.
Weirdly, I had no idea what he was talking about in the final paragraph, because I lack enough background information. But somehow I enjoyed reading it anyway, because of the last sentence. That was brilliant.
I don't think the writing is pretentious, it's simply bad and awkward. People are commenting he just likes to use words, but there are ways of doing that, while at the same time crafting something that flows well.
He probably writes the way he speaks. Bad idea. People are generally fantastic at parsing speech, and terrible at parsing writing.
Or, as I'd say it:
Well, if I had to guess, I'd say he probably writes in a similar way to the way he speaks; or at least; the way he would like to speak if he had three minutes to think up every sentence he had to utter. This may not be such a good idea as it sounds, unless you have a term paper due, of course. Because human beings have been speaking for roughly the same time that we've been making jokes about funny shaped fruit, we have fantastic wiring in our noggins for translating the sounds we utter into thoughts, but simply don't have the same capacity to decode the same kind of syntax if it has been scratched on cave walls, or written on parchment, of displayed in glyphs on some kind of screen or whatever your medium of choice is for writing.
He brings up a very good point that a lot the information humans pickup is from each other's faces. The nonverbal feedback facilitates turn-taking in conversation as well as emotional feedback.
Perhaps Glass causes visceral reactions because of the combination of its foreignness (unlike glasses) and proximity to the face.
Over and above the privacy issues, you can never have the undivided attention of someone wearing Glass. That's deeply off-putting. Imagine trying to have a conversation with someone as they listened to headphones and stared at their phone the whole time.
The fact that having glasses/ocular implants that embed electronics already have many negative connotations re-inforced by mainstream media [1] doesn't help acceptance of Glass either.
I know that my views on Glass (negative) would be a 180degree shift if it didn't have a camera mounted on it. I respect others' privacy and I feel pointing a camera is a form of "brandishing"
That foreignness should go away with time. I'm sure plenty of people were offput by people wearing glasses when they were first introduced to society at large.
Tangential to the actual post's content, but I'm a bit miffed at the "Microsoft is the victim of bad messaging" trope: what distinguishes "bad messaging" from the argument not made (deliberately or not) is, apparently, the existence of an argument deemed better - but that's never been any basis to determine the former. Talk about the potential of Microsoft's system (and we can do so independently of Microsoft) - but the act itself is nothing that deserves pity or accommodation. A policy of taking arguments at face value at the very least allows for consistency.
I wonder if the news about Google's participation in PRISM will influence the way we (HN members) think about Glass. It certainly makes me feel less comfortable with passively revealing more of life to Google.
I'm confused about the transition from Glass (Google product, no?) to discussion of Microsoft's messaging problems. Can someone explain the relationship?
I think I am in the minority when I say I am looking forward to continuous backup of my day to day activities whether it be through sousveillance or from others.
I am not in the "if you don't have anything to hide crowd..." in the least and am certainly aware of the ability of those in power to abuse it. My take on it however is, I am going to just slough off the mores which I would have previously been concerned with privacy about.
Catch me swearing when I shouldn't have? Oh well. Maybe I'll be less inclined to do it next time. What if I whisper a dirty idea to my wife? Well, what's wrong with a happily married couple doing what they like after all?
After you have kids the idea of going to the bathroom in privacy slowly drifts out of the window - and why shouldn't it? It really doesn't make any ethical impact on me for someone to know if I am doing a biological process.
My hope is, all of this will make us much more honest people. You can't embarrass/blackmail me if I cannot be embarrassed/ashamed.
I think you and I are privileged to live in relatively open societies, and to fit in well enough such that the worst that can happen is to be embarrassed for things we've done wrong.
But what about people in less open societies, and who don't fit what society thinks should be the norm? For a gay man in a more conservative place, the "honesty policy" may imply great physical harm.
And even if you actually fit in to the stereotype of the Good Citizen, what about misunderstandings? What happens if a clip of a few seconds gets taken out of context of a conversation (even by accident), which makes you sound like you support some terrible thing, helpfully linked to your name by Google's algorithms?
see, this is the thing about glass; There's a whole lot of useful stuff you can do with a HUD that doesn't involve a camera, and wearing a HUD would be a hell of a lot more socially acceptable if people didn't assume they always came with cameras.
Or hell, just a 'the camera is on' indicator. a red light, or a bit of plastic you can slide over the lens or something. (I mean, clearly, both of these things can be faked, but there are a thousand other ways to conceal a camera on your person, if you are being deceitful. The important bit is to make a clear way of setting the social expectation that the camera is on/off.) Personally, I'd favor some kind of physical lens block, as it guarantees my privacy (during the times I physically block the camera) even if the firmware is compromised.
One day there will be a Google Glass that isn't detectable by the subject of the recording (tapped directly into the sensory system of the wearer). Then a lot of the enforcement mechanisms against "Glassholes" will become redundant.
[+] [-] lmkg|12 years ago|reply
Like a year later, someone else who is working in a similar field reached out to her labmate to ask for the raw data. Thankfully, he asked us if we were ok with it, because I kind of wasn't. I had agreed to let one person that I kind of knew already to see footage of me. I was slightly uncomfortable with the idea of 6 hours of me conversing with my girlfriend at a brewery being passed around between who knows how many labs, and appearing in who knows how many papers, over a period of who knows how many years. Cuz I mean, once you lose control over who has access to that data, even just a tiny bit, that genie isn't going back into that bottle. Not that there was anything to care about, it was just a brewery and playing with some legos at home, but I didn't like the idea of becoming The Guy, and data sets have a way of becoming institutions in that field.
And it wasn't just me, either. We were in a semi-public space, there were other people in the background. I have no idea if they would be cool with being in an academic paper. Maybe they would be, but they never even knew they were being recorded, so it seemed kind of unfair to make that call for them. We eventually decided to not allow the data to be shared.
So then her labmate asked if he could just send over the audio data. To which our response was "why are we only finding out now that thing was recording audio?" That left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.
So I don't know if I have a point really, I'm just sharing my experience with this. The big issue for me is loss of awareness and loss of control. I know who or what is seeing me, because I can see them back; I can be aware if someone is setting up a camera, and leave or hide my face or ask them what they're doing. I'm (approximately) aware of who can observe me, and who has or will have access to those observations in the future. The troubling aspect of Glass is that it introduces an asymmetry that I feel is to my disadvantage: if someone observes me with Glass, access to that observation is potentially unbounded. This feels to me like a loss of control, and that's why Glass makes me uncomfortable.
[+] [-] ntumlin|12 years ago|reply
PRISM is (arguably) legal, and there are plenty of people that support it, yet I am completely against the program. This is probably just a me thing, but in case it isn't, just be aware that because you think being recorded in public is okay that everyone else is.
[+] [-] marshray|12 years ago|reply
This illustrates why we can't let just let researchers and enthusiasts run wild with new (and old) privacy-impacting technology. Like nuclear and biomedical research, we need an ongoing public discussion about boundaries.
[+] [-] acchow|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CoffeeDregs|12 years ago|reply
I'm curious about your point's effect on Glass: does it render Glass invalid or reduce its market in scope so that Glass is a press/media device? I suspect the latter.
But thinking further: what if, Science-Fiction-style, Glass were so small as to be invisible? Would we all act as if we were always being recorded? What would society be like?]
[+] [-] dustingetz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjolk|12 years ago|reply
By proxy, every Google Glass owner will be acting as a remote recording device for government agencies. Everyone in the line of site/hearing range of the device forfeits privacy.
[+] [-] cookiecaper|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kylekramer|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] molbioguy|12 years ago|reply
It all comes back to privacy being a sense of control over what someone releases to the world about themselves. Glass helps take away that control (as does secret NSA data collection). People are uncomfortable when someone else controls the release or collection of their personal data (images, whereabouts, friends, etc).
[+] [-] alex_stoddard|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotsofcows|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JDGM|12 years ago|reply
The fact that this is actually a link to the accompanying article from Tycho is great as his pieces are usually quite interesting but I miss out because they don't come up on the Penny Arcade website until a good few hours after the comic. It's infuriating actually, as the comic frequently makes me want to read what Tycho has to say but it's not there yet. I don't understand why they do that. Anyone?
[+] [-] teej|12 years ago|reply
If you're interested in games news, I've found the Penny Arcade Report to be fantastic. It hasn't been around long, but I several articles from it have already hit the front page of HN. http://penny-arcade.com/report/
[+] [-] Uhhrrr|12 years ago|reply
I speculate that their "use model" is that you click refresh on the main site on MWF until the new essay comes up, then click through to the comic. Of course if you use an RSS feed or click refresh on the comic page, it makes less sense.
[+] [-] Argorak|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doktrin|12 years ago|reply
This is a resistance that I'm sure is shared by many in the general public. It's something we all may get used to eventually, but I honestly predict a fairly grating and occasionally unpleasant transition period.
[+] [-] bentcorner|12 years ago|reply
Not to me. It's the social equivalent of walking around holding your smartphone, recording everything. Sure, you might not actually be recording everything, but when you hold it up like that I have no idea if you are.
An audio-only version of glass may be more socially palatable.
Still though, it'll be interesting to see how this works when it is available for the common public. I personally feel that people wearing bluetooth headsets in public are sorta douchey-looking (just my personal impression), I wonder if that's going to be any different with Glass (I doubt it).
[+] [-] dgallagher|12 years ago|reply
Now with glass-like tech, it's more subtle. You'll not only have to remove them, carrying an "always-on" camera in your hand might not resonate well either; you'll have to encase them away from light entirely.
Essentially, I think people would want some sort of indication that it's truly disabled in scenarios where they would be uncomfortable with it around. A whole new world of etiquette is about to open.
The last major change we had was with cell phones. That continues to evolve, decades after availability. I wonder what paths glass-tech etiquette will take?
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] enraged_camel|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] wonderzombie|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oinksoft|12 years ago|reply
This is only based on the Penny Arcade comics I've seen that have gone viral, so perhaps it is not representative.
[+] [-] saraid216|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] marcosscriven|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] wisty|12 years ago|reply
Or, as I'd say it:
Well, if I had to guess, I'd say he probably writes in a similar way to the way he speaks; or at least; the way he would like to speak if he had three minutes to think up every sentence he had to utter. This may not be such a good idea as it sounds, unless you have a term paper due, of course. Because human beings have been speaking for roughly the same time that we've been making jokes about funny shaped fruit, we have fantastic wiring in our noggins for translating the sounds we utter into thoughts, but simply don't have the same capacity to decode the same kind of syntax if it has been scratched on cave walls, or written on parchment, of displayed in glyphs on some kind of screen or whatever your medium of choice is for writing.
[+] [-] ironchief|12 years ago|reply
Perhaps Glass causes visceral reactions because of the combination of its foreignness (unlike glasses) and proximity to the face.
[+] [-] gaius|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|12 years ago|reply
I know that my views on Glass (negative) would be a 180degree shift if it didn't have a camera mounted on it. I respect others' privacy and I feel pointing a camera is a form of "brandishing"
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Picard_as_Locutus.jpg
[+] [-] moskie|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rplacd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hawkharris|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessep|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lurkinggrue|12 years ago|reply
The only reason for the Glass diversion is Gabe got one this week as well and they are living with it.
[+] [-] AndrewKemendo|12 years ago|reply
I am not in the "if you don't have anything to hide crowd..." in the least and am certainly aware of the ability of those in power to abuse it. My take on it however is, I am going to just slough off the mores which I would have previously been concerned with privacy about.
Catch me swearing when I shouldn't have? Oh well. Maybe I'll be less inclined to do it next time. What if I whisper a dirty idea to my wife? Well, what's wrong with a happily married couple doing what they like after all?
After you have kids the idea of going to the bathroom in privacy slowly drifts out of the window - and why shouldn't it? It really doesn't make any ethical impact on me for someone to know if I am doing a biological process.
My hope is, all of this will make us much more honest people. You can't embarrass/blackmail me if I cannot be embarrassed/ashamed.
[+] [-] icebraining|12 years ago|reply
But what about people in less open societies, and who don't fit what society thinks should be the norm? For a gay man in a more conservative place, the "honesty policy" may imply great physical harm.
And even if you actually fit in to the stereotype of the Good Citizen, what about misunderstandings? What happens if a clip of a few seconds gets taken out of context of a conversation (even by accident), which makes you sound like you support some terrible thing, helpfully linked to your name by Google's algorithms?
[+] [-] lsc|12 years ago|reply
Or hell, just a 'the camera is on' indicator. a red light, or a bit of plastic you can slide over the lens or something. (I mean, clearly, both of these things can be faked, but there are a thousand other ways to conceal a camera on your person, if you are being deceitful. The important bit is to make a clear way of setting the social expectation that the camera is on/off.) Personally, I'd favor some kind of physical lens block, as it guarantees my privacy (during the times I physically block the camera) even if the firmware is compromised.
[+] [-] thufry|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bquarant|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] methodin|12 years ago|reply