Remember the scene from Beauty & Beast? Where all the object is the house are alive and they can talk, plus serve you tea and even groom you? That all seems very magical and wonder doesn't it? Well, we live in an age where technological advancement is at its peak, and has made many advancement that we can only dream to see on a sci-fi film. The idea of communicating with objects sounds marvelous to me, is how I always picture the future to be. In fact, we are already communicating with objects, take for example our desktop computers and laptops, they are objects yet we communicate with them and spend so much of our time with them, possibly more time then any other device in our home or office.
In Julian Bleeckers article, "Manifesto of for Network Objects - Cohabiting with Pidgeons, Aprhids and Aibos in the Internet of Things", he highlighted the fact that the concept of "internet of things" has been well implemented through Blogjects. For now we can see that objects are starting to "communicate" with each other somehow, though they have to be connected first in order to do so. He also stated that there are a couple of common characteristic possessed by these objects.
Traces- Blogjects Known Where They Are
Most smartphones today has access to Facebook which allows people to do check in when there are at certain places, this works the same as the check in apps in Facebook as it acts as a tracking device telling people where are you currently. With the world becoming more and more dangerous, more and more gadget have been implemented with GPS technologies so that if the gadget was to be stolen or missing it can be found through its tracking device, other then tracking down object it can help track people too, which brings me to my question how sure are we that this would not lead to invasion of privacy issue? One may have good intention to have tracking devices implemented in their cars but the company who produce that tracking device could sell the information of your daily activities to other companies which could be a possibility. Not saying is not good thing, it is actually a wonderful advancement to up safety for the people, just that we can never be sure as invasion of privacy could be an issue to this.
History- Blogjects Known From Whence They Had Arrived
Just like having a memory of their own, they (blogjects) may soon be becoming more and more human as us. The idea that they know what you like just base on how you have utilize them seems too good to be true, but in reality it is happening, I remember I have to set the timer for my own air conditioner so it will turn and off at a specific time possibly in the future the air conditioner would be turn on and off by itself and thus saving you the electricity bill and the environment. But it's also creepy the fact that the gadgets and object know you so well to the point they know what time you will get home, and what your favorite meal, music and etc. is even possible they know more about you then you know about yourself.
Agency - They are assertive and soon to be human
This makes blogjects more human like, it gives them their own personalities and traits just like a normal human would have. Every blogject is different from the other with different designs as well as uniqueness and even capabilities. And blogject can be personalized to make themselves stand out from the others. Which if we take a look around us is very true, so many objects sports different vibes, different uniqueness and they all look different from one another. Take for example our mobile phones is different from others because of the design, is different from other similar design because it has been personalized by you to your own liking to be able to make it stand out from the other similar designs.
My take on this on communicating with objects is that, it will benefit us a lot in the near future, but the only worries that the blogjects gives to me is that we will be communicating with them much more then we would with people, the blogject can only do so much as to imitate the way humans, but in terms of communicating it can never top that of a human.
Hi Ivan!
ReplyDeleteI am having the same concern as you. What if the blogjects become more human than us? Thus, I personally think that there's a need for us - as the real humans - to set a limit in controlling our interaction with these objects. After all, we as the creator, should have a say in the actions of these objects, and not having them dominating our lives. No doubt that I have to agree with you that they will definitely benefit us in the future. Everything is so personalized now, it kind of make them on a similar standard as us, isn't it? In fact, just like you say, they can even be customized & personalized. Just like plastic surgery, right? That explains why we prefer to purchase devices we can have a control with instead of items that we cannot alter.
It's kind of scary when we realize that objects are starting to know more than our own friends or even our own families. Why exactly is this happening? Are we too dependent towards the "objects"? Possible. Why are we trusting the "objects" more than our own friends & families? Just because they can't converse with us? But have you ever thought that the ones holding our data are actually humans themselves and "objects" are merely the ones managing the information? Certain individuals update their Facebook status more than they converse with their friends & families. So what if Facebook is alive and is actually capable of conversing with humans through voices & languages? Will it be the same again?
I believe that humans are merely satisfy with the fact that when they converse with something that can't talk back to them, it's kind of like a self-reflection. We don't need to be afraid that we might hurt someone's feelings or that we might irritate others; and if "objects" are to be alive, it would be a great threat for humans as they are having too much information in hand. This is definitely one thing we must be careful of :)
Evening, Ivan! I really like your opening with the Beauty and the Beast example. Of course upon watching this Disney tale, we know it's just a story and it's bizarre and wouldn't happen in the real life. But guess what, in our physical realm, objects like these are mushrooming up quicker than we thought!
ReplyDeleteAnd since we can find them in the real world, isn't it a little bit creepy? It's like going back home to find so many voice speaking which can be really spooked out. I find them fascinating yet I'm apprehensive towards them.
Objects now can blog! Isn't that a strange phenomena by itself? They live with us, we embedded information about us to them, just living together. I like the fact that you point out these objects know so much about us with constant and ubiquitous pace that they might just know us better than ourselves.
This is alarming because what if these objects completely take over us? Then information will go all over the place, privacy will be breached and we get that crippling feeling that something is constantly watching us. Maybe because we're not used to this concept yet, but I'm interested to know how the future would be like with Blogjects living and talking through the network just like us human do.
Good day Ivan!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree on your point with blogjects, is really scary to know that devices or objects to understand us more than we understand ourselves. How can something from so call a different type of dimension can understand us so much better than humans understanding humans, the sense of humanity between us humans is becoming distorted as objects are now helping us to remember and store the information for us and all we have to do is just rely on this objects to retrieve the information. A good example would be comparing the phones in our house in the olden days which we have to remember the particular phone numbers in our heads, but now is just with a few touch of buttons the name will appear on the screen of our phones. Its definitely is weird to see this happening, even if we travel to somewhere we unsure of, the use of GPS comes into place where it will talk to us! and tell us the direction, imagine one day the GPS set us up for a trap and lead us into a deserted ghost town which super natural things happens! or all these devices just one day decides to shut down and protest that these objects are more important than humanity. It definitely looks like a disaster approaching if we rely to much on these particular objects rather than ourselves. However without doubt we do need to rely on it in todays living lifestyle as the life phase is moving so fast that we are unable to catch up with it if we don't rely on these objects. In conjunction with relying on objects, its just there have to be a balance at times to never forget our human roots and ensure there is a balance within ourselves as similar to the way of a warrior samurai one could talk about, or even in relation to feng shui of yin and yang that everything must consists of a balance in nature.
Great post Ivan!
Hi Ivan, great post you have there. If the blogject is becoming more and more human, I think this could help us alot but in the same time it also could be harmful to us too. Why harmful? It is because it could make us lazier.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I think it is quite creepy which all the objects are collaborating each other to provide us a simple life. As you mention the air conditioner, I would manually close it at midnight, but if it automatic close for me. I was really not used to it. It feels like I am under every controlling. However, I think this still depend on every human habits.
Hi, Ivan..great write up you have there... i simply do agree like others where nowadays with all the latest invention on our latest devices,it actually know more than us.. if we treat it like our best friend, it will serve us the right tool that we want..if not, it give us tons of headaches too.... and somehow, it can be abit problematic as well..where we are not able to control what we want to do as mostly is preset by the computer..just like some cars with keyless entry...some would want to crank using ignition keys BUT...only one options given.
ReplyDeleteHi Ivan,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that we will become less human. That's what I though too when I was reading the article.
Less of human, this is because we would not explore and do totally what we human being can do or is capable of doing with all these blogjets around us.
On the brighter side, it will definitely make out life easier for our fast paced life we live in today
Sharmila
I agree with you... would this make us less human? With efficiency, will we end up losing our human touch?
ReplyDeleteI believe there must be a balance and both must go hand in hand. The machines will help us to do the work, get the data, organize our information systematically while the moderators, which is us, insert human elements such as values, discussions, findings into our conversations. We must not forget that computers are just machines, they do not have the capability to feel, let alone think. They just do as they are commanded. If we were run by them, imagine the monotonous lives we will live! The beauty of the world that we know will soon vanish into clouds of convenience and an easy job done.