from Wrench in the Gears
January 11, 2018
This installment highlights smart city surveillance and the Internet
of Things. Cam and Li’s lives, including their educational experiences, are
shaped by ubiquitous algorithms that align their behaviors to the economic and
social expectations put in place by the Solutionists. This is the third
installment in the series. If you want to read from the beginning use this link to access the introduction and Part 1:
Plugging In.
Cam and Li have grown up in a world controlled by sensors and data. All
day, every day sensors watch, track and transmit information. The devices that
make up the vast web of Internet of Things are tiny, but their combined power
is incalculable. The most common IoT sensor in the pre-lockdown years was the
smart phone. Practically anyone over the age of ten had one. Acting as a
sensor, people’s phones were a primary means of data collection, logging
information about how people interacted with each other, with systems, and
their physical world.
The first sensors were
created to monitor global supply chain shipments. Then, corporate, government
and academic researchers devised a dizzying array of sensors to transmit data
about most aspects of the physical world and how people live their lives in it.
Instead of tracking pallets on cargo ships, they now track people, buses,
energy, animals, art, storm water runoff, even sounds and footsteps. Each
processor gathers a particular type of information that can be merged into the
data stream for analysis. Predictive analytics algorithms, complex mathematical
equations that anticipate future outcomes, tap into the data stream. Such
algorithms can be used to predict when the bulb in a streetlight will fail,
when a storm sewer will overflow, or even where a crime will happen.
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