Augmentor and augmentee

glass-collective

Why are these guys smirking? Because they’re the founding members of the Glass Collective, the new “investment syndicate” that Google has organized “to provide seed funding to entrepreneurs in the Glass ecosystem.” Which means that they’re thinking about the prospect of gaining continuous access to your field of vision.

McLuhan offered a dark prophecy about Glass a half century ago:

Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit by taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don’t really have any rights left.

That’s alarmist, sure, but even though Glass is a logical extension of the ever-present smartphone screen and its hidden location sensor, it also represents a crossing of the bodily proscenium. It is, as they say, in your face. And before we allow those fellows up there to mount our brows, harness our gaze, and whisper sweet somethings in our ears, it would probably be wise to consider exactly how they’ll benefit by taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves. When profit-seeking investors and companies start augmenting our reality in a very intimate fashion, how exactly do rights and responsibilities shake out?

It’s time, in other words, to get beyond abstract references to “augmented reality” and start talking about augmentors (that would be them) and augmentees (that would be us). When Silicon Valley talks about the benefits of radical transparency, it’s always talking about augmentees and never about augmentors. It has, collectively, an army of lobbyists and PR functionaries actively resisting attempts to put limits on the transparency of augmentees as well as attempts to make the operations of augmentors more transparent. What does such an imbalance of power mean when it’s our very gaze that’s being tracked and manipulated? Does our gaze warrant explicit protections? Is our gaze our own, or is it now a tradable commodity? When it comes to data collection and sale, does reality augmentation begin with the default of opt-out or the default of opt-in?

The Glass Collective is a collective of augmentors. They can be expected to act in their own interests. We augmentees have yet to even think about ourselves as augmentees. If that doesn’t change – and soon – the defaults will, once again, be set without us.

20 thoughts on “Augmentor and augmentee

  1. Ed van Stranden

    ” It has, collectively, an army of lobbyists and PR functionaries actively resisting attempts to put limits on the transparency of augmentees as well as attempts to make the operations of augmentors more transparent.”

    Similarly, Google has no problem breaking/bending copyright law when it comes to books, but trying to make Google’s search algorithms public will probably get you into serious trouble.

  2. yt75

    “Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit by taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don’t really have any rights left.”

    This doesn’t need machinery, brands for instance, information in general is taking on our ears or eyes, the google glass brand is doing more on this than the google glasses will.
    The duality isn’t where you think it is, and it hasn’t moved one millimeter.

  3. Nick Post author

    Vulgar Linguo: when I write my S&M/science fiction/zombie novel, that’s going to be the name of the protagonist.

  4. Brutus

    Most of us have already sold our gaze down the river by attending so steadfastly to cinema, TV, news, handheld gadgets, etc. in a totally media-saturated environment. The Glass is merely another iteration, a step closer to the Google Implant that many want so they can have impulses pumped directly into the nervous system rather than waste time going through, you know, the senses. The so-called Collectives behind these devices and innovatins are no conspiracy, even though true motivations and engineering know-how aren’t fully disclosed, because they operate out in the open and make what they offer so tantalizing we can’t look away. I’d call it information addiction except that what we’re served is mostly ephemera. Isn’t this just an aspect of inverted totalitarianism?

  5. Daniel Cole

    Nick, did you see the the article on Slate today about Google trying to transition to the text free Star Trek computer?

  6. yt75

    I remember seeing a zeitgeist conference video, with Larry Page wearing the glasses, where he says something like “I still cannot see a stamp near your face with your name” but it will come.
    Basically that summarizes it, taking things on the angle of “more direct communication directly in the nerves or cortex” is moot, symbols, words, names, are what they are, and they are already somewhere in your brain for the languages you know (even if of course in a slightly different way for each individual).
    I think it’s below one :
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0WH-CoFwn4

  7. yt75

    Not to mention that having a stamp with people names next to their faces has nothing to do with the glasses, but with the databases behind.

  8. Brad

    Saw it as Augmentor and Amputee for a split second there. Not too far off really as Google means to fit us with a prosthesis.

  9. Elly/Quiet Riot Girl

    ‘It’s time, in other words, to get beyond abstract references to “augmented reality” and start talking about augmentors (that would be them) and augmentees (that would be us).’

    I agree in particular about needing to get beyond abstract references to ‘augmented reality’. I found your recent comments at cyborgology blog refreshing, as I was beginning to feel some of the writers/thinkers there have become a bit lost in jargon and ‘theory’ without tackling practical issues and everyday phenomena in this field.

    Interestingly, the cyborgologists are also not enamoured of Google Glass, but have seemed to focus on the ‘early adopters’ and have supported Adrian Chen in calling these techno-nerds ‘assholes’. But your use of the term ‘augmentee’ is interesting as it makes us think about everyone who may come to use new technologies and the effects of the technology on them and the world around them.

    I might argue we’re all ‘augmentees’ in the end. Even the CEO of Google has been sold, convinced by, affected by technology. Maybe some ‘augmentors’ started off as very enthusiastic ‘augmentees’.

  10. Nick Post author

    “Saw it as Augmentor and Amputee for a split second there.”

    That’s great. McLuhan also argued that all augmentations are also amputations.

  11. Elly/Quiet Riot Girl

    The mentions of augmentor and ‘amputee’ remind me of my comments on Oscar Pistorious (when he was just a paralympic hero before the tragic events):

    ‘They seem to be playing on the ‘futuristic’ aspect of prostheses, and the technology that enables Oscar’s incredible achievements. As The Sun newspaper, who named Oscar amongst their Top Ten Hot Shots of metrosexy men olympic athletes, say:

    ‘The South African double amputee has earned the name ‘Blade Runner’ for his incredible pace on prosthetic legs.’

    http://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/metrosexual-olympics-4-metrosexy-oscar-pistorius/

  12. Tim

    I don’t think this is alarmist, I think that the most alarming thing about the continuing culture of quiet exploitation has not been confronted in any meaningful way. Are we already on Soma?

  13. Josh

    I think the point about recognition you bring up is a very interesting one. It reminds me of Foucault’s ideas about power and their expansion by David Hoy. Hoy postulates that it is easier to understand the power being enacted on a person once they realize that they are truly being enacted upon. This, I feel, directly relates to your warning that we need to see ourselves as “augmentees” lest we have no say in the utilization of said augmentations. Working from that angle reminds me of many other calls for recognition both inside and outside of the more technologically focused world. Movements for free software, open source, and Internet freedom echo this overall call for recognition and while some have been more successful than others, it’s admirable that you’re moving so readily towards the idea before the technology permeates too much of our lives/culture.

  14. Roxie

    Also, and of concern is whether there will be an available “opt-out” for those people who are being viewed, without consent, by the Augmentee’s device. If not, how much detection will be automatically enabled? Some possibilities that an ‘observee’ should be cautious about:

    Facebook’s face recognition
    Google Image recogntion
    iPhone detection
    Verichip detection
    Free Wi-Fi
    Bluetooth

    This is a small list, but it’s early days.

    I won’t be participating as an Augmentee, but I have concerns whether I can prohibit other Augmentee’s detection ability. I don’t want to be scanned.

    Maybe someone can start to think about developing shield technology.

    Roxie

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