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Peter Watts:<\/p>\n
\nI recently read Terri Favro\u2019s upcoming book on the history and future of robotics, sent to me by a publisher hungry for blurbs. It\u2019s a fun read\u2014 I had no trouble obliging them\u2014 but I couldn\u2019t avoid an almost oppressive sense of\u2014 well, of <\/span>optimism<\/i> <\/span>hanging over the whole thing. Favro states outright, for example, that she\u2019s decided to love the Internet of Things; those who eye it with suspicion she compares to old fogies who stick with their clunky coal-burning furnace and knob-and-tube wiring as the rest of the world moves into a bright sunny future. She praises algorithms that analyze your behavior and autonomously order retail goods on your behalf, just in case you\u2019re not consuming enough on your own: \u201cWe\u2019ll be giving up our privacy, but gaining the surprise and delight that comes with something new always waiting for us at the door\u201d she gushes (sliding past the surprise and delight we\u2019ll feel when our Visa bill loads up with purchases we never made). \u201cHow many of us can resist the lure of the new?\u201d Favro does pay lip service to the potential hackability of this Internet of Things\u2014 concedes that her networked fridge might be compromised, for example\u2014 but goes on to say \u201c\u2026to do <\/span>what<\/i>, exactly? Replace my lactose-free low-fat milk with table cream? Sabotage my diet by substituting chocolate for rapini?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe, yeah. Or maybe your insurance company might come snooping around in the hopes your eating habits might give them an excuse to reject that claim for medical treatments you might have avoided if you\u2019d \u201clived more responsibly\u201d. Maybe some botnet will talk your fridge and a million others into cranking up their internal temperatures to 20\u00baC during the day, then bringing them all back down to a nice innocuous 5\u00ba just before you get home from work. (Salmonella in just a few percent of those affected could overwhelm hospitals and take out our medical response capacity overnight.) And while Favro at least admits to the danger of Evil Russian Hackers, she never once mentions that our own governments will in all likelihood be rooting around in our fridges and TVs and smart bulbs, cruising the Internet Of Things while whistling that perennial favorite <\/span>If You Got Nothin\u2019 to Hide You Got Nothin\u2019 to Fear<\/i>\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n