Shared Sight and the Cyclops

Dana Cuff, Mark Hansen, & Jerry Kang

Abstract

Within academic research, pervasive computing in the form of embedded networked sensing has made the leap from the laboratory to the environment. Soon, there will be a far more significant jump into “urban sensing,” which will take full advantage of the cell phone platform that has already rolled out. Central to this new form of urban sensing will be the capture and sharing of geo-coded images and video. Although we recognize the special salience and significance of visual information, we resist drawing any sharp distinction between “visual privacy” and the more general “information privacy.” After all, sight always involves both a particular technology of sensors (responsive to electro-magnetic radiation) and substantial post-collection computation.

Urban sensing necessarily involves a transition away from centralized scientists and science, towards citizen construction and engagement with a "data commons." Citizens will engage in variegated sense-making of this data commons not exclusively or even principally for scientific purposes but for artistic, social, political, and advocacy ends-- especially with visually recorded and represented information. Such participation by way of contributing to and making sense of the data commons will become an increasingly important engagement with the public sphere. Given its signficance, we explore the legal and technological conditions that might encourage the development of such a data commons.

Of course, sharp questions remain about what we will come to see. We outline at least two tragic fates: Sirens and Cyclops. Sirens represent data illusions, a sort of statistical mirage or tunnel vision, that lead us to poor decisions. Cyclops addresses another tragic possibility, that we come to see a more accurate picture of reality, only to remain entirely impotent to changing that underlying reality. In other words, we will only come to see the inevitable circumstances of our demise. We explore potential strategies to make our vision more trustworthy and catalytic.

Biography

 

* Image Caption, Source, Info.