I posted a while back about my frustration dealing with iTunes. The same goes for the Tivo2Go service, which makes me enter a password each time I watch a show in digital format. I truly resent having to prove myself to my stuff each time that I am, indeed, allowed to use it.
Well, in the “it gets worse before it gets better” department, Dan Lockton is working on a dissertation about “architectures of control” — or how things are designed, or can be designed, to force certain behaviors. Somewhat disconcertingly, Lockton decries AoC(Architectures of Control) where the motivation is purely commercial, but suggests there are white hat uses for such technology:
There are, equally, numerous examples with more socially beneficial intentions, such as breathalyser or seat belt interlocks for car ignitions, blue lighting in nightclub toilets (to make intravenous drug use difficult), and growing opportunities in terms of coercing consumers to behave in more environmentally friendly ways — e.g., products could cease to function if the intended operation would cause excessive energy use.
I think it’s appropriate to make a distinction between environmental or mechanical AoC and “intelligent” AoC. The aforementioned blue lighting is environmental. It affects everyone all the time and you can move away from it. Restaurant seats that encourage moving on by being not particularly comfortable. And so forth. These are fairly passive.
Intelligent AoC on the other hand gives me the willies for two reasons. One: I don’t want to have to go through an interrogation every time I want to use something. Have I driven too far? Am I recharging my iPod too often? How about a lamp that won’t turn on because I’ve used it too much? How annoying would that be?
And two: “intelligent” is rarely intelligent enough. It can’t tell context. Imagine a “smart” car that shuts down in the parking lot of a rest stop six hundred miles from home at three A.M. because the oxygen sensor just burnt out and now you’re polluting. We’ve just traded personal safety for a minuscule improvement in air quality. And so forth.
It occurs to me there are a lot of unintended and potentially dangerous consequences of intellegent AoC — either directly, as a result of denial of product service, or indirectly as people try to find ways around the restrictions. And they will, of course. I know I would.
