GOOGLE GLASSES, A NIGHTMARE ABOUT TO HAPPEN?

GOOGLE GLASSES, A NIGHTMARE ABOUT TO HAPPEN?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© February 22, 2012

Three quarters of a century ago, cartoonist Chester Gould created the comic strip, Dick Tracy.  The police detective was known for his spy wristwatch with its two-way radio mobile phone, his cigarette stamp ring, and a special pair of sunglasses that gave him facial recognition of a perk.

As a boy of the Great Depression Generation, we would think it cool to send away for plastic replicas of these devices, and pretend we were the great detective.  Later, Dick Tracy solved crimes with special cameras that would record images undetected by criminals, similar to what would become television.  None of these devices seemed anymore than exciting factoids of an imaginative cartoonist.  How wrong we were.

Today, handheld devices can send text messages, emails, surf the Internet, record conversations, take pictures and have conversations with people situated on the other side of the globe. 

On any street of a metropolis, you will find people walking with their heads down looking at these devices unaware of the people they bump into, or the dangers to themselves and others as they cross busy streets. 

Google glasses has the answer.  No longer will these preoccupied citizens have to have their heads buried in these devices, but will be able to look straight ahead and not miss a beat.  Moreover, google glasses will have many other features including GPS, facial recognition, taking pictures, recording conversations, texting, sending emails, surfing the Internet while walking by merely moving the head one way and another. 

With google glasses on, you can walk into a new restaurant and move the head and know what the restaurant’s health record is, and how it stands in the “top ten” restaurants.  You need never be lost as the GPS tracking system will tell you where you are and show you the most direct route to getting where you want to go. 

Nor need you ever be embarrassed not remembering the name of a person you haven’t seen in sometime.  By moving the head, the data will surface giving you the name, pedigree and pertinent data as if you were viewing the person’s FaceBook page. 

Imagine taking a difficult examination in physics, and not knowing or remembering the particulars of the theory.  Nod your head and the great physicist who did the original work and came up with the theory will appear right before your eyes, no problem.

If you thought this new digital age was moving too fast, or in fact out of control, think of our best and brightest huddled together in their snug cubicles at Apple, Microsoft, and Google, considering how to do Dick Tracy one electronic device better. 

The horrors of the past, which we read about in history books of the Nazi and Soviet Russia regimes, where neighbors spied on neighbors and reported the privileged information to the secret police, is now entering the realm of normalcy. 

A person with google glasses could be smiling at you recording what you are saying and at the same time taking your picture to confirm the time, place and circumstance.  Law and order and the court system are surely to take on a whole new dimension.  Dick Tracy gave us the mole.  Now the mole could be your best friend and you would be the last to know it.

Google glasses will be priced at from $250 to $600 when they come out.  I suspect the first day on the market ten million or more will be sold.  The only comforting aspect at the moment is that they are likely to be at first a bit cumbersome, as were originally personal computers.  One day, however, I suspect google glasses will be as difficult to detect as contact lenses.

We have allowed technology to increasingly invade our privacy until it is practically nonexistent.  The argument will be made that this is progress, and inevitable, and those supporting this argument may very well be correct. 

The problem is with the “cut and control” phenomenon, once you cross the Rubicon of “what was” to “what is” there is no going back.  And that is why I see this development as a nightmare on the cusp of the future.

A nightmare is a strong negative dream that can cause a negative emotional response of the mind.  This is not a dream.  This is reality, an act of commerce in which we could be entering hell without the necessity of dying.

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