🪞 Mirror Mirror on the Wall, How Would Year 2047 Look for All 🪞
⚠️Be Warned.
There may be spoilers of the shows, "Black Mirror," "Love, Death, & Robots," and Psycho-Pass in this blog post.
When I was reading the paper, I was reminded of all the futuristic tv shows that I've watched. For example, while reading about invasive and non-invasive brain-machine interfaces, I was reminded of series shown below. . .
It was a super interesting connection because Facer & Sanford (2010) talked about the future of technology. However, these shows like "Love, Death, and Robots" add depth to the reading by illustrating the potential dark side of technology and give us plenty of food for thought regarding what we should consider in the future of technology. However, this blog post will not mainly focus on these shows and their deeper meanings. Instead, I am referencing them because having these images in my mind helped me understand the points that Facer & Sanford (2010) was trying to illustrate in their scenarios. Therefore, I will reference shows like Black Mirror and Love, Death, & Robots to support my points in this blog post.
A viable scenario from Facer & Sanford's (2010) article
Gif from Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" - Lacie Pound is giving someone a rating on her phone
I think the most viable scenario from Facer & Sanford (2010) article is World 2: Loyalty Points. Facer & Sanford (2010) refers to loyalty points as rewards and benefits people achieve based on their contributions. People must carefully manage their reputations within their "employment/community/religious groups associations." The main effect of loyalty points is that people would find their place within a group.
When I read about the loyalty points, I was reminded of the Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" where people live in a society that is based on a points system. As Facer & Sanford (2010) described in the article, people need to carefully manage their reputations within their community because they are rated based on their actions. As a result, people's social statuses are determined by their ratings.
Gif from Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" - Lacie Pound is checking her rating
I chose this scenario not only because it reminded me of the Black Mirror episode but I remembered how the episode spoke to me when I first watched it. First, I think a point based system is viable because people in our society are already rating services based on needs. For example, we use Yelp to find the best restaurants to see whether their services match what we're looking for based on other people's reviews. From my research, something similar is being developed in some societies already. For example, China is trying to implement a social credit system. Society would judge people based on their credit rating, social assessments, and more. Therefore, this type of system might happen successfully.
However, being viable does not necessarily mean it could be good for society. For example, the Black Mirror episode discusses the dark side of relying too much on a point system.
If we group people based on where "they might most effectively contribute to particular social and economic associations," would some people be discriminated against due to their groupings (Facer & Sanford 2010)?
- Would a particular job be worth more than others?
- Do you have to gain more points to enter a field versus another?
- If people want to be in one field but are not deemed suitable for it, would they be coerced to give up their aspirations?
- As a result, would this create a more divided society?
These are questions I have when I read the paper.
My Predictions of Future ICT. . .
When I came across this prompt, I was stumped. I sat down to imagine what the future of ICT would look like. Therefore, I decided to do some research on the topic. I am going to list two things that captured my attention when I was researching smart cities.
Lowering risks with future ICT
As someone interested in corporate learning and technology, I came across a video about assisted technology lowering certain occupations' risks. For example, firefighters would have assisted technology using augmented reality that could help make processes more efficient, receive assistance from control centers, and help them find people using heat tracking technology. As a result, it lowers their time spent in fires and the potential risk. Another example is that people can use ICT to identify system errors before damage happens. I'm linking the video below for you to watch if you're interested. The technologies that I listed are introduced between the times 1:29 - 1:48.
This can happen because we already use assisted technologies with our everyday operations. With improved ICTs in the future, we can successfully implement this type of technology. It can also lower the risks of many occupations, which we should focus on when developing technologies. I hope our future technologies can solve problems that will reduce the potential dangers of certain occupations.
Creating virtual communities for identity expression
Future ICT will blur the lines between virtual and reality. People could be immersed in technology and feel, see, smell, hear and sense things within the virtual world. However, one unique thing about virtual reality is that people can develop different avatars. Therefore, they can express themselves using these avatars (something they might not be able to do in real life). Within these virtual worlds, they can build and create their communities too. These communities can be designed in any way they want. They can also create a safe space for themselves. This is an exciting part of future ICT research because many studies have examined how avatars can help people find a sense of belongingness.
Concluding thoughts. . .
However, all these discussions around future ICT raise my concern about privacy. With so much technology developing, we will become increasingly reliant on them. As a result, technology companies will gain more and more data on us. Therefore, how do we ensure we can keep our information private? Also, looping back to my discussion of a loyalty point system in society, I mentioned that my definition of viable is what I thought would mostly happen in society. Therefore, when you did your blog post, did you think viable means the best future for society, or did you think of what would most likely happen?
Hi Kelly! I really enjoyed your connection with Black Mirror, Love, Death, & Robots and the article. Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" and the Loyalty points world can definitely match.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your query, I believe that the modern civilization is undoubtedly utilitarian. Jobs that meet more material demands are frequently viewed as having more value. I'm also reminded of the way banks use credit scores. Mortgages, credit card debt, auto loans, etc. are all examples of consumer credit, which is obviously a significant institution. Consumer credit market expansion is a worldwide phenomena. I believe the world 2 are viable in every way since the growth of the credit market causes people to be evaluated by their bank credit score as well.
I share your concerns about privacy. In a world where people themselves are not even aware of how much technology they are surrounded by, how do people ensure that people's privacy is not abused by large corporations and governments?
By the way, there is a show called "The Capture" about CCTV footage being abused and tampered with. I think you would like it:)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8201186/
Thank you so much for your vision of 2047. Your mention of Black Mirror, Love, Death, & Robots reminds me of the "Truman Show". Truman passively exposed everything about himself to the audience, then when we take the initiative to publish information about ourselves on the Internet, is it the same as Truman? And how do we know if it's a real event or person on the Internet? With the development of technology, I think there will be more fake events and attacks on people on the Internet.
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly, I loved how you wrote your blogpost by connecting it to phenomenon shown in media. Very cool! Regarding the second question in your conclusion, I wrote my blog post also on what's most likely to happen. For me I felt world 1 was the most feasible. In fact, we are already living in a highly personalized world. Customers are demanding more and more personalization in every facet of life and education is no exception. However, I did wish to see world 3 occur as I felt that would be the best for the world, however, its one I don't see happening so easily for most nations/societies as it requires coordinated effort from multiple parties which can be difficult.
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly, thank you for your post! Reading about the loyalty points vision, I also instantly thought about the Black Mirror episode. I mean it could happen, and partly is happening with counties embedding social credit scores in everyday behaviour, however to me this seems a little bit too transactional to be completely true. I cannot fully believe that our social engineering will boil down to a simplistic empirical rating - I think life is waaaay more complex than that. Might be biased coming from the humanities, but I feel like humanitarian and humanistic education is what can really help people see the humanity beyond the numbers and ratings. I hope we don't lose track of nuance and humanity in organising social order in the future.
ReplyDeleteAlso, well, even now we judge students by their GPAs, citizens by their credit score and restaurants by their Google Maps rating. Is this inevitable?