With how society has reacted to the meta glasses, it has me wondering about optical implants. They’re going to be here eventually, and presumably will have cameras in them out of necessity. I’m sure there will be a whole thing about getting ones that aren’t back doored by a corp, but we are also talking about curing blindness. This isn’t something everyone will skip on due to a fear of surveillance, simply because blindness can be so difficult to live with.
Are we careening towards a deus ex scenario where the majority of humanity villifies and ostracizes anyone with augments? I always expected that to a certain degree, religious folks especially being what they are, but the reaction to smart glasses has me concerned that the discrimination against people with optical implants might be way more extreme than I expected, from groups of people I would have previously considered level headed when it comes to technological advancements.
Anyway, I was just curious to hear from others what their thoughts might be on the subject. Do those of you that despise smart glasses think you’ll have the same moral issues with optical implants? What could be done to avoid the issues you have with the glasses when it comes to implants, if anything? Do you intend to discriminate against people with augments if you live long enough to see them in widespread use?
So I work a secure unit where we take people’s devices for the privacy of all patients. We had to take a patient’s prescription glasses that they like, use to not fall down while walking, because they were smart glasses with audio / video recording functionality. This is just a whole extra level of #NewFearUnlocked. I cannot imagine the administrative clusterfuck this would cause.
It’ll be way, way worse than what you’re thinking because of prevention mechanisms for corporate espionage, and just regular old espionage for that matter. The technology to remotely shutdown/control cars that everyone agrees exists today, and is a problem today? It’s coming to eyes in the future. You won’t be allowed to work for company X unless they get the keys to control the recording function on your eyes, because otherwise you could walk off with their recipes or whatever. It’s even a completely understandable “ask,” but as with the cars, TVs, cell phones, smart watches, etc, there’s no user/owner level control over restrictions. You can’t unplug your eyes the way you can a car cell antenna.
It’s a good time to talk about it since the technology isn’t here yet, because the first implementations of it will be desperate volunteers who’ll sign up for anything to get sight, and it’ll be really hard to argue to someone who had some irreversable, company proprietary device installed on the end of their optic nerve the ins and outs of why the signed away the rights to know if their eyes are recording them and transmitting without their knowledge.
This has also occurred to me but I’m not at exactly the point in my life where this is the most relevant part of the debate compared to the effect that directly impacts my primary specialty.
You can source new prescription glasses for someone to replace the AV glasses; it might take a bit, but it can be done. The infrastructure necessary to securely disable a set of features in any person’s eyes who could plausibly need to be in an environment like you’re describing means they’ll all be designed/built that way.