Blogjects: 1984 All Over Again

It is incredible to imagine that there could someday be everyday objects that tell us more about the world than we could have ever before imagined. In Why Things Matter, Julian Bleecker talks about a world where information flows from things called blogjects. These blogjects would be able to post to the internet information about their surroundings and the interactions that the objects had with other blogjects. The information flowing from these many, varied inputs could then be used by humans. I think that having blogjects examining every detail of my life would quickly become overwhelming.

Blogjects seem to be a very useful tool for getting automatic information from the world around us. I agree that there is a great potential to get information for scientific research. On the other hand, the world would quickly become Orwellian because every action could be captured on camera, and the effects of our actions could be recorded. Our own blogjects would tell the whole world what we had done. I cannot think of a situation where this exposure into my life would be a good thing. In fact, I would be downright terrified to live in a glass world where nothing was private.

Even though blogjects seem to be very useful for sharing information, that information needs to be regulated in order to protect privacy. I think that blogjects can be useful to a certain degree. If birds are fitted with electronics to measure toxins in the air, that really cannot do much harm. If cameras lining the streets of major cities are linked to the internet that could possibly become a problem. According to Bleecker, however, this would only be the start. Blogjects would interact with people and other blogjects. They would basically do the exact same things that human bloggers do. The blogjects could ultimately compile their individual perspectives in such a way as to cause actions to be taken.

The idea that blogjects could eventually cause actions to be undertaken is slightly scary. It is easy for human bloggers with the ability to reason and explain thoughts clearly to change the opinions of others. Is it possible that blogjects could someday have a similar effect? If they do, that would mean that blogjects would collaborate and swing public opinion. This is a far cry from several simple objects reporting raw data for human interpretation. If blogjects were ever to progress that far, computer programs would have enough power to autonomously sway public opinion and the actions of the masses.

While blogjects can be very useful for automated science and information gathering, I think that it is going too far to allow blogjects to have an assertive voice on the web. It is ill-advised to give blogjects the power to project opinions. The only way that opinions should be formed with blogjects is through humans responsible for interpreting the raw data from these blogjects. If blogjects are allowed to share what they “experience” without any oversight, people will lose a large degree of privacy. Blogjects, although they have a limited role in society, should not be expanded to interact autonomously with the internet and human users.