The Era of Sentient Things

So writing this post was a tough one: What to write about? Smart stuff or the ubiquitous iPod (something I still don't own)? I decided to go with the smart stuff. ‘Smart’ phones, ‘smart’ shoes, ‘smart’ swimwear, ‘smart’ t-shirts. Yes, I get the message. It is Rheingold’s ‘Era Of Sentient Things’ and the computer is not the only ‘smart’ thing in the market.

What got me thinking, apart from this weeks reading, was the ability of these so-called ‘smart’ chips that track your every move. But who’s watching? The Patriot Act has caused a lot of furor. Once such technology enters everyday life, what’s next? Will we start shopping for chip-less things like we do organic food? Will there be a separation of the two?

Will these chips talk to each other like Rheingold prophecied? Technology has grown exponentially from 2002; are the prophecies coming true or is it just the hippie-era-Uncle-Sam-is-watching paranoia that’s gripping me now? What worries me is that it’s not just Uncle Sam anymore; it’s other people like me who own ‘chipped’ things. Who owns access to your devices, either to push information at you or extract information from you? Remember how bluetooth technology on cellphones scared us in the beginning?

I also read Sherry Turkle’s book, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, last semester, which got me thinking on Artificial Intelligence (AI). I’m still skeptical of interacting with cyborgs because I’m not convinced that digital or computerized communication can fulfill all my needs of human interaction and human communication. While I don’t want to say that people should stop creating and experimenting with new technologies, I also don’t want a society where everything is done through computers, phone or wearable computers. I still hold on to bits of offline and non-digital communication and I think it is important to have and continue to use.