Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« What Do You Think Wealth Distributi… | Morning News »

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Tech The Closer Google Glass Gets, the More Ethical Dilemmas Appear

Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 7:06 AM

1. Here's a blog post that makes a very good point about Google Glass:

The key experiential question of Google Glass isn’t what it’s like to wear them, it’s what it’s like to be around someone else who’s wearing them. I’ll give an easy example. Your one-on-one conversation with someone wearing Google Glass is likely to be annoying, because you’ll suspect that you don’t have their undivided attention. And you can’t comfortably ask them to take the glasses off (especially when, inevitably, the device is integrated into prescription lenses). Finally – here’s where the problems really start – you don’t know if they’re taking a video of you.

Now pretend you don’t know a single person who wears Google Glass… and take a walk outside. Anywhere you go in public – any store, any sidewalk, any bus or subway – you’re liable to be recorded: audio and video. Fifty people on the bus might be Glassless, but if a single person wearing Glass gets on, you – and all 49 other passengers – could be recorded. Not just for a temporary throwaway video buffer, like a security camera, but recorded, stored permanently, and shared to the world.

Now, I know the response: “I’m recorded by security cameras all day, it doesn’t bother me, what’s the difference?” Hear me out – I’m not done. What makes Glass so unique is that it’s a Google project. And Google has the capacity to combine Glass with other technologies it owns.

Go read the rest. In the weeks since Google Glass has been announced as a definite upcoming product, more and more problems have presented themselves. To give a personal example: I attend a lot of film screenings. At many of these screenings, security guards collect the cell phones of everyone who enters the theater. What do they do if someone is wearing Google Glass? What if those glasses are prescription strength, and the critic is unable to see the movie without them? What about places like banks, where filming is discouraged? I think we're going to see Google Glass banned outright in some locations.

2. Along those lines but on a lighter note, Dartanion London made a video demonstrating how Google Glass will affect the dating dynamic:

FacebookShare

Comments (26) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

I was thinking face recognition technology could give you everything from background checks to Facebook pages. On the other hand it would make FBI's most wanted list harder to hide from.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on March 5, 2013 at 7:38 AM

I foresee an incredible surge in wireless jamming technology.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on March 5, 2013 at 7:48 AM

@2, I would wear jamming glasses. Even a jamming trilby or porkpie. A jammer that could be tucked into one's mustache or beard would sell like hotcakes in the Pike/Pine neighborhood.

Posted by gloomy gus on March 5, 2013 at 8:12 AM

You can buy something that's billed as a "polite date hankercheif" that's basically a faraday cage you wrap your cellphone in while eating dinner with somebody.

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/pho…

Posted by canajun-eh on March 5, 2013 at 8:17 AM

Whatever, get back to me when they have x-ray vision.

Posted by seandr on March 5, 2013 at 8:23 AM

The real issue would be (and here Google stands to benefit) the competitive advantage a Four Eyed Cybernoid would have over the typical dumb person. So there's the Glassy eyed brainiac spouting Wikiquotes at a cocktail party while you merely have blue tinted contacts. Soon everyone will want a pair, like Sneeches and stars.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on March 5, 2013 at 8:24 AM

I think it would be great, too, if it interprets languages. Wow, you could communicate with a lot of different people all over the world without learning a single language. Grade point averages, legal briefs, words to songs, prices in stores, art auctions. Now that I think of it, it kind of makes you super human.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on March 5, 2013 at 8:25 AM

At MIT I knew several "cyborgs" who wore early prototypes of wearable computers (and are probably working at Google now). They were not nearly as covert since the camera and screen apparatus was very visible.

And they had battles with various businesses. As part of the experiment they considered the electronics to be part of their person so they would generally refuse to remove them.

It will be interesting as these go mainstream. Cell phones already allow "awkward gym" videos to go viral. Cameras are now carried routinely in locker rooms, concerts, movie theaters, and other places where they are just not socially acceptable or otherwise forbidden.

Now, though, we'll have something more like those Russian dash cams attached to the front of every passersby.

Posted by fletc3her on March 5, 2013 at 8:33 AM

I can't imagine they'll make these with prescription lenses... either they'll work along side prescription glasses, or people who wear the prescription version will have to get used to carrying around another pair of glasses at all times- because there's no way in hell these things be allowed in locker rooms, strip clubs, etc.

Another more pressing issue no one seems to be talking about is people driving while wearing these things. Can you imagine? Good god.

Posted by UNPAID COMMENTER on March 5, 2013 at 8:47 AM

You know, smart phones have the ability to record video and take pictures too. These days, when somebody has their phone out, you don't know if they're texting, browsing the web, or shooting video of you, and nobody seems to have a problem with that. So maybe take your Luddite bullshit somewhere else.

Posted by Brandon J. on March 5, 2013 at 9:14 AM

With every moment, every foible, flaw and error, potentially being recorded and preserved for an eternity of consumption by an unforgiving public, we will now all know what it is to be the heroin in a Jane Austin novel. Perpetually one misstep away from disgrace and ridicule (if not social ruin). I wonder if it might generally improve public behavior. I doubt it though. I suspect that in this Kardashian era, to make a big enough ass of oneself to go viral will be the new celebrity.

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me on March 5, 2013 at 9:25 AM

We'll get used to google glasses soon enough. It will take a bit of adjustment, then we will just take it for granted that every moment we spend with other people is not only public, but universally available for review.

I actually prefer google glasses to security cameras. Less creepy to know every second I spend with another person may be recorded than to wonder about every second I spend alone.

Posted by wingedkat on March 5, 2013 at 9:40 AM

Health clubs are now going to have to prohibit Google glasses in locker rooms (as the more upscale ones now prohibit cell phones and other devices.)

Posted by raindrop on March 5, 2013 at 9:45 AM

@10 Uh, no. You can clearly tell the difference between someone shooting video and texting. Protip: IT'S WHEN THEY'RE POINTING THE PHONE AT YOU.

Posted by UNPAID COMMENTER on March 5, 2013 at 9:50 AM

I'm sure Will in Seattle has some well-thought-out insights from all that secret Google Glass testing he's been doing.

Posted by Fnarf

on March 5, 2013 at 9:57 AM

@ 15, I'm only clicking on this thread to see you and Will go at it.

Posted by Matt from Denver on March 5, 2013 at 10:08 AM

Thanks, @16. Just think of it as me carrying a cell phone or tablet and recording you every second of every day.

The main problem I found, behavior-wise, is I frequently forgot to turn them off in the bathroom. One gets distracted.

Seriously, the privacy implications of always-on are worrisome. But I'm far more worried about what happens when surgical robots commit murder. Do they care if we jail them? Or is that like a vacation for them?

Posted by Will in Seattle

on March 5, 2013 at 11:12 AM

Funnily enough, I just saw on my FB feed that The Five Point Cafe has gone ahead and become the first Seattle business to ban Google Glass (and encourage ass-kickings for violators.

Though I assume that within a year or three they will be available as a thingie (the technical term) that attaches to your regular glasses, and will eventually be inobtrusive enough that no one will be able to tell.

Posted by Fnarf

on March 5, 2013 at 11:31 AM

@17, "them"? It's funny when you can't keep your own lies straight. You do not have Google Glass. And we're supposed to believe that you record video 24/7? That's not how it works. You have no idea how it works.

But thanks for making everyone on Slog imagine you videoing yourself going to the toilet right before lunchtime, prick.

Posted by Fnarf

on March 5, 2013 at 11:38 AM

@10.. i don't know what rock you live under but i know MANY people have issues and problems with 'smart' devices as they already are, issues that range to social courtesies to privacy, so to imagine that this technology will be met with legitimate concern is not some bullshit 'luddite' fantasy.

Posted by reverend dr dj riz on March 5, 2013 at 11:51 AM

@20 if by "many" you mean "old" then yes

Posted by Unregistered User on March 5, 2013 at 1:23 PM

I'm trying to imagine how Google Glass would work for people who need prescription lenses.

Sure, sure, you could wear contacts AND Google Glass...but it seems to me that if you need to see THROUGH prescription lenses to see that everything Google Glass adds onto those lenses would be blurry.

(As a glasses-only person, it seems like Google Glass will fall into the same category as 3D movies for me...things other people get to enjoy.)

AND...props to Dart for another funny video!

Posted by pg13 on March 5, 2013 at 1:25 PM

@21, please tell me you did not just come in here and call the good Reverend "old", son.

Posted by Fnarf

on March 5, 2013 at 1:25 PM

@23 No, just the many people concerned about privacy issues I keep hearing about all the time. I constantly wonder what new technology, trend or music I'll be dislike in 10, 20, 30 or 40 years. Probably something about those damned kids and their hivemind.

Posted by Unregistered User on March 5, 2013 at 1:34 PM

@24, I'm sure that whatever is going through your mind in 40 years will be just as fascinating as whatever's going through it now.

Posted by Fnarf

on March 5, 2013 at 1:40 PM

The eventual endpoint could be something more like this is you like semi-distopias (7 minute short and dating with app implants)
https://vimeo.com/46304267

Posted by bruski on March 5, 2013 at 9:53 PM