I am a camera
Here’s an idea I find really fascinating: Google Clips, a wearable camera, not something you take out of your pocket, like a smartphone, but that instead is meant to be clipped on the clothing or placed somewhere and that takes bursts of animated pictures for up to fifteen seconds automatically, along the lines of small GIFs or Live Photos. What’s more, it doesn’t just take images at preset intervals, but uses machine learning algorithms to understand when to snap into action, creating a profile of the subject. According to the company, “Clips looks for stable, clear shots of people you know. You can help the camera learn who is important to you so when grandma comes in town, you’ll capture the grand entrance.” This is lifestreaming, life passing before a camera and captured by it. No data connection or account is required: Google Clips takes high resolution images and then mounts them in a video that you can see later on your smartphone.
Similar algorithms have been applied to intelligent security cameras that take photographs only when they detect movement or when capturing previously requested images, but are designed to be stored in an archive.
Google Clips was launched on the US Google store for $249 with free shipping (but you must have a US address) on February 27, and has already been reviewed by several publications. When it was announced in October, GoPro shares fell, with most describing it as “the new Candid Camera”, the new “hidden camera”, although it is not really hidden and has a pilot that lets you know who is being photographed and when, although you’ll probably soon forget about its presence. Though not particularly small or discreet, it brings to mind Black Mirror episodes, books and its corresponding movie exploring the idea of a world of total and absolute transparency.
Google Clips may end up being no more than an experiment to show Google’s progress with machine learning, one of those unsuccessful lines the company ends up discreetly removing during Spring cleaning, but I find it interesting to think about what kind of world we would be living in if it became popular, or what Google expects to do with it. How would you behave with a person wearing a camera like this or if you were in a room with one? We already live in a world where everyone carries a camera with them, meaning that anything can be captured in seconds, without thought of the possible consequences or legal repercussions relating to the almost immediate dissemination of images around the world. What happens when Google’s new camera, instead of just sitting in your pocket and needing to be turned on, is able to function automatically, based on algorithms able to decide what to photograph? Will we accept it, in the same way we have come to accept the smartphone?
Life is what happens while we are doing something else. It’s not possible to relive it, and trying to do so by resorting to photographs or videos requires a conscious effort, something that many of us would consider a second-hand experience: instead of focusing on the moment, we are already thinking about our memory of an event, although people whose passion is photography or video would disagree. What happens when this approach to continually capturing images for later use becomes routing, automatic and we accept it as a fact of everyday life?
It is too early to know whether a device of this type will take off, whether we will see it hanging from people’s pockets, whether its widespread use will create problems or unforeseeable situations, whether some people will find it intrusive or offensive, or whether other manufacturers will copy the idea and produce smaller versions that can be hidden. But the technology now exists, and so we have to think about the impact on society of everybody, whether we like it or not, taking photographs of us. Could we soon be living in a world in which when you go to somebody’s house for dinner there are cameras recording us continually so that later on in the evening we can sit round looking at what a great time we’re having? How many cameras would be required to capture a wedding or other important event, and all carried by people unaware of their presence?
Thinking about the idea of televised life requires thinking about the future, of imagining the possible consequences and changes to our lives. All this may be precipitous for a newly released product that may well be forgotten in a year or so because people found it invasive, creepy. Until recently, this was simply not possible, but technology has now seemingly made it very simple to use, and after all, speculating about technology and its impact is what we’re here for!
(En español, aquí)
