Let me throw out two predictions so obvious that I shouldn\u2019t even have to commit them to print:<\/p>\n
\n1) Within days, if not hours, of \u00a0Google Glass\u2018s release to the general public, hackers will \u201cjailbreak\u201d the hardware, allowing it to run any \u201cGlassware\u201d users desire and can create or find online; and<\/p>\n
2) An independent developer community will emerge to create those applications , whether Google wants them to or not.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
As a matter of fact, I\u2019ll double down and assert that both of these predictions are already in the process of coming true, even while Glass is in its \u201cExplorer Program\u201d phase, and that Google\u2019s announcements \u00a0this week that it won\u2019t allow facial recognition apps or \u201cadult\u201d fare for Glass will only add fuel to the fire.<\/p>\n
Porn, of course, is any device\u2019s \u201ckiller app.\u201d Enough people want it, and want it badly enough, that they\u2019ll either have it from their devices or get OTHER devices to have it from. Above and beyond the usual \u2013 pedestrian porting of dirty pictures to Glass format, just like they were ported from print magazine to computer monitor way back when \u2013 I can\u2019t imagine that more than a year will go by before there\u2019s Glassware to predictively, imaginatively, visually undress whomever the user happens to be looking at on the street, on the dance floor, etc.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t have to like it. It\u2019s going to happen whether we like it or not, and whether Google likes it or not.<\/p>\n
Similarly, facial recognition is the Glass-specific \u201ckiller app.\u201d It\u2019s the one thing that the device is so obviously useful for and that people will so obviously want to use it for that there\u2019s just not going to be any stopping it.<\/p>\n
The most benign and universal applications are obvious:<\/p>\n
You meet someone, you get his or her name, you say \u201cOK, Glass, this is John Doe.\u201d You\u2019ll never have to worry about forgetting a name again.<\/p>\n
You want to introduce two people, but can\u2019t be present. \u201cOK, Glass, send John Doe\u2019s facial profile to Joe Smith, with a message to meet him in the food court at noon.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so on, and so forth.<\/p>\n
Are there more sinister uses for facial recognition? Of course there are. But facial recognition is coming.<\/p>\n
Again: We don\u2019t have to like it. It\u2019s coming whether we like it or not, and whether Google likes it or not.<\/p>\n
If by some chance Google is able to effectively darken Glass such that it can\u2019t fulfill users\u2019 desire for porn and facial recognition, then something else will come along with clearer vision. You\u2019ll be able to pick up a Google Glass unit at Dollar Tree, like one of those little headphone-radio sets that people buy because they\u2019re going to the beach and don\u2019t want to risk getting sand in their REAL personal stereos.<\/p>\n
The press is filled with nods \u2013 from Google itself, and from opponents of facial recognition tech \u2013 to something called \u201cprivacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
But privacy, as David Brin has been pointing out for years, just ain\u2019t what it used to be. Absent complete technological collapse, it\u2019s never going to be what it used to be again. If you show yourself in public, the assistive tech to identify you is going to be available. Period. And soon.<\/p>\n
Instead of obsessing over the steady advancement of technology and attempting to thwart its potential at the development level, we should direct our efforts toward abolishing institutions which necessarily and murderously abuse that potential.<\/p>\n
Technology is getting cheaper and cheaper, and more and more useful.<\/p>\n
Political government is getting more and more expensive and less and less tolerable.<\/p>\n
One of the two needs to go. And it\u2019s pretty clear which one.<\/p>\n
Thomas L. Knapp<\/strong> is Senior News Analyst at the Center for a Stateless Society (c4ss.org<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n