The Manifesto Moment in IoT
by Ester Fritsch, Prof. Dr. Irina Shklovski and Prof. Dr. Rachel Douglas-Jones
The ThingsCon report The State of Responsible IoT is an annual collection of essays by experts from the ThingsCon community. With the Riot Report 2018 we want to investigate the current state of responsible IoT. In this report we explore observations, questions, concerns and hopes from practitioners and researchers alike. The authors share the challenges and opportunities they perceive right now for the development of an IoT that serves us all, based on their experiences in the field. The report presents a variety of differing opinions and experiences across the technological, regional, social, philosophical domains the IoT touches upon. You can read all essays as a Medium publication and learn more at thingscon.com.
This text plays a special role in that contains a meta-analysis of the previous State of Responsible IoT (2017). It is based on a CHI paper that examined IoT manifestos and, among many others, also the contributions contained in the ThingsCon State of Responsible IoT 2017 edition.
Across Europe, designers and developers of IoT are calling for a revolution. Growing unease with the present state of IoT investment, hype and direction has brought forth reflections about what technological ubiquity means in practice, and what the role of designers and developers should be in creating our common technological futures. Concerns vary widely, but in the past few years, IoT networks, design studios and organizations have started to write down their concerns in manifestos. Framed variously as design principles, statements on ethics and responsibility, our analysis of 28 IoT manifestos shows that the manifestos mark a specific point in the discourse of ethics of IoT, a moment when the promised technological future is faltering.
Why Manifestos?
Why would you write a manifesto? Manifesto writing is polemical, it is political. Manifestos have had a role in political and design developments of the twentieth century, inviting comment and engagement. The manifesto is the transformational style chosen by designers and developers of new technologies to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo, and to imagine different futures. In our study of 28 different manifestos about The Internet of Things¹, we explored what might be appealing about this long established, rousing format, or as the literature theorist Caws called it, a “loud genre” (2001:xxix)². The 28 texts we analysed (full list below) were drawn from the European IoT scene, and included the 2017 RIOT report, design manifestos, maker movement documents, and network statements. While styles vary considerably across these texts, in our study we defined a manifesto by the two major rhetorical moves it makes. The moves are recognizable: manifestos first define the present and identify the problems with it, they then define how a better future should play out.
Manifesto Moves
The first move–defining the present–is a challenge for manifesto authors. The majority of texts that we analyzed described a world of technological ubiquity, a present of past futures. Ghosts of the optimistic past haunted the texts, where visions of a future full of ubiquitous technology would produce a world where lives were made easier by near invisible computational assistance. As authors Genevieve Bell and Paul Dourish noted in 2007, while this ubiquitous computing world was meant to be ‘clean and orderly’ it has instead turned out to be ‘messy’³. The messiness of the present takes multiple forms in the manifestos. IoT devices are problematically invisible, and the politics of what they record, collect and transmit is an evident concern. How can the data they collect be known, and by whom should it be known? Mechanisms of data transfer, from its security to its frequency, also appear as concerns. There is a growing realization among manifesto authors that IoT devices are embedded in, and dependent on, a range of existing infrastructures. These layered problems form the descriptive basis for an ethics revolution for IoT.
But what will this revolution look like? Having described a present full of anxiety and confusion, the next move of a manifesto is to shift into predictive mode. Here, authors become part of reshaping the problems they have identified, putting forward possibilities, commitments, and new norms. This is particularly visible for IoT manifestos, because the people to whom they are addressed are the designers of these futures. As they write, authors invite their readers in to a common future, to think through the basis of future IoT design. Beyond ‘thinking through’, readers are sometimes invited to ‘sign’ the manifesto, indicating agreement that they will seek to orient their future work by the principles and visions it contains.
IoT Manifesto Themes
Four strong themes emerge across the different texts: transparency, openness and sustainability and responsibility. These are the sites where manifesto authors direct both their concerns, and their intentions for future change.
Transparency takes on two meanings in the documents, both related to the way an IoT device should be transparent. The first meaning emphasizes the need for consumers to know how IoT devices work and the second the need for designers to be explicit in their design choices. The first argument runs that without informed knowledge of what devices do, or might do, and what kind of data practices the company that made the device has, consumers cannot make informed decisions. The second, emanating from designers themselves, is that the control of data is not (and should not be) part of what a user has to control. Instead, the manifestos argue that designers should make evident how products work in a way that is accessible to someone using the product.
‘Not having transparency into how the technology is working, making decisions, literally moulding our perception of the world, is inherently political.’
(Robbins (RIOT)
These calls for transparency blur with manifestos that take a stance on openness. Openness might be open hardware, as in the Arduino manifesto, but it might equally be activities open to the public, organized around principles of creating a community of equal users, as in the Open IoT Studio’s text and the Dowse manifesto. Openness is raised across a set of manifestos as a way of democratizing control over the making process and the data collection process.
Sustainability, discussed in more than half of the texts, emerges as an ethical concern about the production of IoT: both hardware and software. Manifestos sound an alarm about the environmental sustainability of materials used in IoT production, pointing to the limits on precious metals and the environmental costs of production. At the same time, the short lives of many IoT products concern authors: are they making things that will be out of date, un-useable or unsupported within a year?
Locating Responsibilities Where should responsibility for these concerns be located? As they define their vision of a better future, all of the manifestos try to shift the hyped conversation from what is possible in IoT to what is responsible. Questions common across the 28 manifestos include:
• Should citizens become responsible for understanding the world of IoT (through becoming more educated) or should designers take greater responsibility for designing devices that communicate better how they work? • Should designers consider the IoT ecosystem beyond the specific device they are working on, and consider the possible future effects of their designs? • Should communities, networks and organisations hold one another accountable? How?
Conclusion
Manifestos get attention. They have been used throughout the twentieth century to articulate clear positions and agitate for change. Unlike the modernist manifesto, however, the cautionary manifestos of IoT offer not a single better future but designs for multiple possibilities. Across the design and development space in Europe, the manifesto moment is one of uncertainty and numerous different positions on what a ‘good’ IoT future looks like. As a result, the manifestos reflect considerable uncertainty, one where people are still trying to ‘figure things out’. It remains to be seen what will happen when priorities or values conflict, when those who author manifestos look for the life of them in practice, or when designers and developers try to use these documents to reshape their working lives. The broader research project that this paper forms part of, Values and Ethics in Innovation for Responsible Technology in Europe (VIRT-EU), aims to be central to these conversations, and we are in the midst of ongoing field research, legal and social network analysis of IoT across Europe. Manifestos provide a window into a particular moment not only in social values but also of the documentary power of declaration, as a community is built around the project of figuring out what kind of technological present — and future — we want to live in.
MANIFESTOS
The following 28 documents constitute our corpus for analysis with short-codes marked in brackets.
[RIOT] ThingsCon. 2017. RIOT. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin. http://thingscon.com/responsible-iot-report/
[Deschamps-Sonsino, RIOT] Deschamps-Sonsino, Alexandra. 2017. The Whole Internet of Things. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 10–12.
[Krajewski, RIOT] Krajewski, Andrea. 2017. User Centred IoT-Design. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 13–21.
[Villum, RIOT] Villum, Christian. 2017. Designing the Digital Futures We Want. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 22–24.
[Dietrich, RIOT] Ayala, Dietrich. 2017. Trust, Lies and Fitness Wearables. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 25–32.
[De Roeck, RIOT] De Roeck, Dries. 2017. On IoT Design Processes. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 32–38.
[Scganetti, RIOT] Scganetti, Gaia. 2017. The here and now of dystopian scenarios. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 39–48.
[Robbins, RIOT] Robbins, Holly. 2017. The Path for Transparency for IoT Technologies. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 49–60.
[Smit, RIOT] Smit, Iskander. 2017. Touch base dialogues with things: Responsible IoT & tangible interfaces. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 61–68.
[Jorge, RIOT] Appiah, Jorge. 2017. IoT in Africa: Are we waiting to consume for sustainable development? The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 69–73.
[Krüger, RIOT] Krüger, Max. 2017. Expanding the Boundaries for Caring. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 74–78.
[Thorne, RIOT] Thorne, Michelle. 2017. Internet Health and IoT. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 79–82.
[Bihr, RIOT] Bihr, Peter. 2017. We need a more transparent Internet of Things. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 83–87.
[Kranenburg, RIOT] Van Kranenburg, Rob. 2017. How to run a country (I know where that door is). The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 88–91.
[Burbidge, RIOT] Burbidge, Rosie. 2017. Design and branding: what rights do you own and what pitfalls should you watch out for? The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 92–97.
[Haque, RIOT] Haque, Usman. 2017. How Might We Grow Diverse Internets of Things? Learning from Project Xanadu & the WWW. The State of Responsible Internet of Things (IoT). Published by ThingsCon, Berlin, 98–102.
[Ethical Design] Balkan, Aral. 2015. Ethical Design Manifesto. Retrieved July 6 from https://ind.ie/ethical-design/.
[Doteveryone] Doteveryone, 2017. Exploring what “responsible technology means”. Retrieved September 14, 2017 from https://medium.com/doteveryone/exploring-what-responsible-technology-means-4f2a69b50a61
[Dowse] Dowse. Retrieved May, 2017 from http://dowse.eu
[Flaws Kit] Flaws of the Smart City Friction Kit Version 1.3. October 2016. Designed by Design Friction. Retrieved August 8 from: http://www.flawsofthesmartcity.com
[Maker Movement Manifesto] Hatch, Mark. 2014. The Maker Movement Manifesto. Mc Graw Hill Education.
[IoT Design Manifesto] IoT Design Manifesto. 2015. Retrieved March 14, 2017 from https://www.iotmanifesto.com
[Open IoT] Mozilla’s Open IoT Studio. 2016. Practices for a Healthy Internet of Things. Edited by Michelle Thorne, Jon Rogers and Martin Skelly. Published by Visual Research Centre, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee.
[TCM] Oliver, Julian, Gordan Savicic and Danja Vasiliev. 2011–2017. The Critical Engineering Manifesto. Retrieved June 23 from https://criticalengineering.org
[TOPP] Topp Studio. 2016. R.IoT. Responsible IoT. Retrieved March 30, 2017 from https://medium.com/the-conference/responsible-iot-3-essential-iot-design-features-504ce4c62e77
[Uribe] Uribe, Félix. 2017. The classification of Internet of Things (IoT) devices Based on their impact on Living Things. Retrieved July 15 from https://www.uribe100.com/images/Documents/classificationofiotdevices.pdf
[Apps for smart cities manifesto] The apps for smart cities manifesto. 2012. Retrieved July 6, 2017 from http://www.appsforsmartcities.com/index.html%3Fq=manifesto.html
[Human(IT)] The Human(IT) Manifesto. 2017. Accessible manifesto from World Economic Forum 2017: BlockChain, Ethics, AI, Humans and Shift Happens. Retrieved September 11, 2017 from http://dataethicsconsulting.com/en/world-economic-forum-2017-blockchain-ethics-ai-humans-shift-happens/
[Things Network] The Things Network Manifesto. 2017. Retrieved July 7, 2017 from https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/Manifest
[Arduino] Arduino 2016. IoT Manifesto. Retrieved May 5 2017 from https://create.arduino.cc/iot/manifesto/ Accessible from https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2016/04/arduino-iot-manifesto/
REFERENCES
- Ester Fritsch, Irina Shklovski, and Rachel Douglas-Jones. 2018. Calling for a Revolution: An Analysis of IoT Manifestos. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Paper 302, 13 pages. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173876
- Caws, Mary Ann. 2001. The Poetics of the Manifesto: Newness and Nowness. In Mary Ann Caws (Ed): Manifesto. A Century of Isms. University of Nebraska Press, xix–xxxiii.
- Genevieve Bell and Paul Dourish. 2007. Yesterday’s tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s dominant vision. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 11, 2: 133–143.
Ester Fritsch holds an M.A. in Anthropology from The University of Copenhagen. Her research engages with complex ethical configurations that embrace laws, policy, humans, plants, technologies, data and other influences. She is curious towards how ethics emerges through relational practices unfolding in such hazy intertwinements indicating that ethics might not solely be a human affair, but a more than human matter. For the past five years Ester has explored this through empirical and conceptual inquiries into climate change, energy and agriculture in Denmark and Italy. As a PhD fellow in VIRT-EU she now seeks to understand how ethics is cultivated and circulated in European IoT ecologies and delves into how ethics is enacted among IoT developers as ethical subjects in continuous becoming.
Irina Shklovski is an Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. Although for her primary field as human computer interaction, her work spans a lot of other fields from computer science to sociology and science & technology science. Irina’s research focuses on big data, information privacy, social networks and relational practice. Her projects address online information disclosure, data leakage on mobile devices and the sense of powerlessness people experience in the face of massive personal data collection. She is very much concerned with how everyday technologies are becoming increasingly “creepy” and how people come to normalize and ignore those feelings of discomfort. To that end she recently launched a “Daily Creepy” Tumblr to monitor the latest in creepy technology. She leads an EU-funded collaborative project VIRT-EU, examining how IoT developers enact ethics in practice in order to co-design interventions into the IoT development process to support ethical reflection on data and privacy in the EU context.
Rachel Douglas-Jones is an Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She was trained as a social anthropologist and STS scholar at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University and Durham University. Her research interests sit at the intersection of ethics, medical anthropology and computational techniques. At ITU Copenhagen, Rachel teaches undergraduate classes on Society and Technology and a graduate studio class called Writing Innovation Studio. She also runs ITU’s ETHOS Lab.
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