The Internet of Things

Brave New Digital World

The Internet of Things and Questions on the Cognitive

London Technology Week took place in June and, for those that know me, this is kind of an awesome deal. 

Why? Because my dissertation of strange and exciting ideas focuses on this idea called Extended Mind Theory. It all started with these two philosopher types, Andy Clark and David Chalmers, who wrote an essay in the early 1990s positing a form of 'active externalism'. This, most simply put, is the idea that there is a dynamic and constantly developing relationship between our minds (ie. our cognitive powers such as thinking, remembering etc) and the external world around us. 

For example: it's pretty normal to use calenders to remember events like birthdays or meetings, and almost everyone uses their mobile phone to store other people's numbers/address/email (or perhaps a phone/address book). We believe, because these events/numbers/emails correspond to a name in our little calenders/phones/books that the information is true. We believe it the authenticity of the information stored inside these external objects. But storing information in this way has historically been associated with our ability to remember, a 'mental event' that takes place inside our brains. So in the end, Extended Mind Theory (let's call it EMT), as suggested by Clark and Chalmers, argues that the hegemony of skin and skull is broken by things like notebooks (Otto's in their case) or more recently mobile phones. They act as the mind acts, storing and reliably retrieving information for us.

As Clark and Chalmer's put it:

'If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is (so we claim) part of the cognitive process. Cognitive processes ain't (all) in the head!'

A bit like this. That pencil would have been handy.

Right so... what does this have to do with London Technology Week? Well it's because during those few days, attention came to the much-spoken-about, not-so-much-understood idea of 'The Internet of Things'. 

Considering how much the term is bandied around, it sometimes feels like people either know exactly what they're talking about when they discuss The Internet of Things or absolutely nothing at all. It's not a new idea though. Not exactly. A basic breakdown is simply that it's inanimate objects - thermostats, streetlamps, mobile phones, watches, shoes, that sort of 'thing' - only connected to the internet. 

"That's billion with a B" - interesting video here if you want to know more from Not-Me

And why connect all that stuff to the internet? Ok, good point. Think about the amount of runners now who have GPS, a heart rate monitor and a personal trainer all linked up through their watches or phones. In fact,  I believe Nike have trainers that come complete with a GPS in the heel so you can calculate how far and fast you run through their running app! I'd love me some of those! As for thermostats, if you're always turning the heat up in the wee hours of the night because you're chilly, your new 'Internet of Thermostats' will store that information and put it to use so that instead of you waking up with cold feet and needing the heat on, the computer can set the right temperature for going to sleep, staying asleep and waking up, all before you so much as shiver. A great article to check out to see how 'Things' and Smart Technology are adapting is Leo Mirani's in Quartz. 

Hang on, so what does this have to do with EMT again, that's why you're so excited about London Technology Week and the ideas behind this stuff right? Yup! All in all, the ideas driving The Internet of Things are probably the most fascinating because it's a marked step in terms of our social evolution but it's also fascinating when considering our cognitive evolution. There have been several articles written in the not-so-distant-future about how the internet, especially search engines like google, are affecting us. Is Google Making Us Stupid? That's the now-famous question asked by Nicholas Carr in 2008 and it's still pertinent today. Many of us will not bother to remember certain things because Google can be accessed whenever and however we want through Smart technology. Many more of us no longer bother with the epic dinner table debates on who wrote what song or who won what race or what the difference is between a pond and a lake, because at the touch of a button: Google will tell us. 

But since it's so reliably used in this way, since it directs our belief system and remembers our favourite searches, and since it not-so-surreptitiously lays down a traceable path from A to B in much the same way that our minds would do exactly that when laying down new information - what implications does this have for concepts such as active externalism and EMT? Could this mean that somehow, everything Google knows, we now 'know' in the way that we 'know' where our shoes are in the morning or where we were on 9/11? It seems ridiculous to support such a notion. It seems counter-intuitive. 

A more likely scenario is that much like the notebooks and phone books - traditional and digital - the internet has memory-like qualities when used in a particular way. It also has further mind-like qualities insofar as it allows us to more easily complete complex arithmetic (type a sum or a conversion into Google and doop-de-doop it's done!) or figure out non-verbal reasoning and spacial problems. And without the internet, our internal structures, how we try to do things in our minds, would be completely transformed without them. It's a 'coupling' thing. Now that so many of us are so reliably coupled with a Smart device, our mental landscape would be utterly different if that device was lost. 

What implications might that have for us ethically? In Sophie Kinsella's Got Your Number, the protagonist has her phone stolen out of her hand by a cyclist. This heroine, who has just lost her priceless engagement ring as well, is clearly more upset about the phone than the ring. How can she live without her phone? It's like having a limb ripped away from her. She feels like she's lost something irreplaceable. She's been violated by a mugger who didn't even stop and face her to snatch her phone away. If EMT was ever mainstreamed, could disruption to our 'extended mind' count as grievous bodily harm? Would it mean that internet access genuinely represented a basic human right rather than a helpful hand in our daily lives? Would it mean that our personal identities became wrapped up in the Internet of Things?

   

And parts of that sound really creepy, you say? Indeed, The Internet of Thing has a creepy side. Big Brother creepy. When we talk about the Covert Sphere and the Surveillance State, we're really talking in complete ignorance to how things might be in the world of the Internet of Things. With the internet constantly taking in and adapting your environment to suit you, your whole world extends into a semi-public sphere. We find it difficult when the idea of our Facebook being accessed by our boss is mentioned, so what would happen if your boss could also see what you keep in your fridge or how far you really ran when you said you did five miles - just because everything is linked up and cohered through your multiple smart devices? More and more would come under public observation, and if that happens, what happens to the ideas of personal identity and the private self - does it disappear as our minds extend and our mental spaces become shared, public spaces like Google or Facebook? 

There's a lot that's still unknown, but with the technological, psychological and ethical all being challenged by the rapid growth in The Internet of Things, it seems there's much that we need to discuss. Let the conversation commence!

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
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