Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
But think of the convenience!
One of the things that I predict for my novel is that over time we will introduce personal 'experts' - advanced Expert Systems or Artificial Intelligence - which will act as a buffer between the individual and a technological world. We will enter into a trade-off: allow our 'expert' to function as an old-fashioned butler, knowing all of our secrets but guarding them closely, in order to then interact with the rest of the world. So, your expert would know your preferences on entertainment and books, handle your communications and banking, maintain some minimal privacy for you by being a "black box" which negotiates with other people and machines on your behalf.
Why do I think that this will happen? Why will it be necessary?
Because increasingly, in the name of 'convenience', both government and industry are seeking to become more intrusive in our lives, all the way down to the level of what happens inside our homes. People want the convenience, but are starting to become increasingly aware of what the price of the trade-off will be. The latest example:
Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You?
If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.
The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the “holy grail” because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.
Here's another source:
Comcast's Creepy Experiment Puts Cams Inside DVRs to Watch You
In a scene straight out of 1984, Comcast said it will begin placing actual cameras in DVR units to track data for who is watching the digital television.This statement is so farfetched I almost don't believe it, but it came out of the mouth of Gerard Kunkel, the senior vice president of user experience for Comcast. At the Digital Living Room conference he said that Comcast is already experimenting embedding cameras into DVR boxes that actually watch the television watchers. Big Brother, anyone?
Comcast is shilling this as a type of customization features. The camera would be capable of recognizing specific individuals and therefore loading a user's favorite channels and on the other hand block certain content as well. Stop the schtick, Comcast. Nobody, and I mean nobody would ever voluntarily allow you to place a camera in a household, for any purpose. It's a shame that I can already imagine the headlines when Comcast does this involuntarily.
Now, in the comments at both sites, there is disavowal by Comcast executives that the company is actually going to do this - they're just "looking into it." Sure.
More importantly, there are a lot of comments about how this is just yet another step into the world of total surveillance, another incremental loss of privacy. Sure, these comments come from tech-savvy people, who are well aware of how the technology may work - moreso than most people. And they are also aware that for many folks, this will be seen as 'no big deal', and a welcome convenience.
But the tech-savvy are the ones who will be developing the tools to counter this kind of intrusion. Sooner or later someone will figure out that there is a service to be met, creating a buffer of privacy between the individual and the corporate-government union. It may not be a huge market to begin with, but it will be the first start in the creation of the kind of expert systems I predict.
Jim Downey
(Via MeFi. A slightly different version of this has been cross-posted to CommunionBlog.)
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more 1984
I guess you could wear a gorilla mask in front of your TV.
Even better not to watch too much TV, but even I have my weaknesses. I also download clips from German and French television (mostly nightly news programs) onto my iPod and watch those during commercial breaks. I don't need the visual cues for the German programs (I also listen to Deutsche Welle and other radio-related podcasts in pure audio) but with the French audio I need all the visual clues I can get.
I don't need a 'smart' program to tell me what I want to watch, I can do it myself and I'd like to be able to tell the cable company: "I only want the History channel, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, A&E, SciFi Channel, the Science Channel, the Military Channel, local Public television, local Public access, and local Weather Channel info, and set me up for pay-per-view for ALL the other channels, on the off chance I actually WANT to see something on the other channels and then reduce my cable bill accordingly for all the other crap channels I opted out of."
That'll never happen, of course, but I can always dream.
I've looked at the Satellite TV "German language" special packages, but that's a bit above my pay grade. And with the cool stuff I can get for free on my iPod, why bother...
I'd love to see Obama repeal the Patriot Act if elected, but that's not going to happen either.
Viewer is sleeping...
That's all well and good as far as convenience is concerned, but can it tell when you fall asleep watching the tube?
But ya, that's the principle reason I wonder about the sanity of people who get live cameras for their Internet-enabled PCs. All you have to do is download a virus and some pervert somewhere can see you wondering around your room in your underwear.
Or if someone can track where your home is they can tell whether you're home or not based on whether the computer is turned on. That way they always know the perfect time for breaking and entering. It's very convenient.
An Easy Solution
Strange...if Comcast is that interested in providing a unique and cusumtomized viewing experience..rather than a camera, it seems to me it would be easier and more cost effective to have a user profile option incorporated into the DVR or cable box. No need for a camera...and no need for me to cover the camera with tape. AT&T and the numerous other telecoms that freely sold us and our privacy down the river is a drop in the bucket compared to the possible implications of the Dept. of Homeland Tyranny or Dept of Injustice tapping Comcast and others for the same social engineering purposes. Add a mic to those Comcast DVR's and run all transmissions right into the government data mining computer systems(or a trusted contractor)and they have nearly all of us monitored 24/7. That is a small price to pay for a unique and customized viewing experience. Land of liberty, freedom, and change my ass. Land of socially engineered consumerism, corporatism, and fear mongering.
Privacy
Me walking thru the room nekkid once would be enough for those guys to rethink that idea. Trust me. lol
Privacy
I downloaded Apples iTunes a few days ago, at their invitation, and the instant I enabled it, I noticed it was apparently cataloguing my entire hard drive. Not just music, but all my pictures, files with .doc endings ... it seemed like everything.
And now with the new boxes you get from the cable people, the ones that have no off-switches and have you online every second you have the computer turned on, I'm really starting to feel the possibilities of spying are pretty high.
I'm wondering if I shouldn't end my subscription to www.Polynesian-Ninja-Biker-Girls-in-Lace.com. I mean, just in case I decide later to run for office or something.
Not only is my privacy evaporating...
there were no Polynesian Biker Girls in Lace. Now that's disappointing!
Just ninjas? n/t
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
TV Ratings
A number of years ago I'd heard that the Nielsen TV ratings people were putting cameras into their tracking devices to identify who was watching. After some googling I couldn't find any confirmation of that but I did find this bit indicating that this technology is covered by a Microsoft patent.
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