January 2, 2007
Kamloops Daily News


Well designed electronic devices seamlessly integrate with
our lives.

Computers do tedious, yet complex chores that we would
rather not be bothered with. Obvious examples are found in
cars, cameras and phones.

The near future will see computers in our clothes that give
washing instructions to the washing machine. Computers
embedded in our shoes could tell the computer in the fridge
that we've walked off last night's pizza and leave the
fridge to decide whether we should have a salad or a
sandwich for lunch.

The goal of industrial designers is to integrate technology
so deep into the structure of our lives that we are not
consciously aware it. In order to do this, designers must
employ the fundamentals of human nature.

One of these fundamentals, called animism, is to regard
objects with apparent intelligent as part of our natural
landscape. Ubiquitous technology becomes acceptable because
we perceive it as "normal." Once that level of acceptance
takes place, technology becomes an unchallenged part of our
daily background.

Animism is ancient mechanism that humans used to make sense
of their natural world. Mike Kuniavsky, technology designer
for the firm Adaptive Path says that: "Animism is, in its
broadest definition, is the belief that all objects have
will, intelligence, and memory and that they interact with
and affect our lives in a deliberate, intelligent, and
conscious way."

Animism makes the acceptance of technology easier because
intelligent objects appear to be part of our familiar living
world. When computers have a life of their own, they become
part of the world of plants, animals, wind, sun and other
objects with a perceived life-force; part of a primal world
of "spirits".

The goal of designers is to equate the wonder of nature to
the inexplicable complexity of computers. Kuniavsky
explains it this way: "Once these technologies are widely
distributed in everyday objects, the environment they create
will become too difficult for us to explain in purely
functional ways."

This marriage of technology with our daily lives is taking
place without debate. While there might be some advantages,
the potential for misuse are enormous.

One chip with potential abuse is the Radio Frequency
Identification device (RFID). It's small, cheap, and used
everywhere. They require no batteries, are paper thin, and
cost pennies to make.

RFIDs don't create alarm because you don't know that they
are there. Some innocuous applications include things like
inventory control. Smart shelves in grocery stores can
track products as they are taken off the shelf and determine
the effectiveness of advertising campaigns on consumer
habits.

RFIDs can also invade privacy. When used in key tags for
electronic doors and payment at gas stations and toll
booths, they can track and record the movement of
individuals. Because information stored on them is
accessed through radio waves, the user is completely unaware
that he or she is under surveillance.

We are completely unconcerned because we tend to
anthropomorphize technology. In other words, when the
workings of things around us seem alive and interactive we
integrate them with our perceptions of the natural, living
world. We bring them into alignment with the known, with
ourselves.

In their article for the B.C. Civil Liberties Association,
Vance Lockton and Wendy Foster warn: "With RFID as our
example, we see that when a tag is applied to an object, an
animistic process takes place wherein the object is now
referred to as 'smart' (for instance, in the case of smart
cards, or smart passports), has memory, and is believed to
be interactive with its environment."

Well designed technology accounts for the lack of alarm at
this intrusion into our private lives. This nonchalance is
reflected in the common response: "I don't mind surveillance
because I have nothing to hide."

This response indicates the success of design; we don't
perceive a problem.

We wrongly think that technology is neutral. And while it
is true that these devices are only machines, the
interpretation of the reams of data is human. People make
mistakes and infer wrong conclusions.

Also, zealous spy agencies and police are often under
pressure to make the data fit a suspect. They may charge
innocent people because of that pressure.

We should be very concerned about this loss of our civil
liberties but because of clever design, we will only regret
this intrusion when we are the innocent victims of
technology.

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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