S06E08 of Connection Problem: Vast Asymetries & Very Good Futures

Hello and welcome,

As we’re headed into conference season and — someone despite myself, but of course also enjoying that bit — I find myself with a bunch of upcoming talks, panels and workshops. Which translates into some extra reading in preparation of those events, and a sense of heightened awareness of interesting tidbits that relate to the areas of discussion I’ll be in: responsible tech, ethical AI, smart city governance, better IoT, consumer protection, data asymetries… what I can now safely think of as the usual, or the new normal of my work. Which makes me very happy, and it’s interesting and I’m into it.

So let’s dive into a nice mix of the dystopian now and the better tomorrow.

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If you'd like to work with me or bounce ideas, let's have a chat.

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Personal-ish update

My parents used to ask me, with a brave smile and a vague sense of dread and uncertainty, what I actually did for a living. It was a fair question: My role is pretty abstract at the best of times, and focused on an area (“emerging tech”) that they simply have no intuitive grasp of. “So, internet things? Like homepages? I don’t understand what it is that you do, but does it pay the bills,” would have been a simplified, but fair representation of those conversations.

Now in a way, even though it was my own life and my own career and I understood some of this better, it wasn’t all that different for me at times. And I had one of those moments when over the last few months, a confluence of requests came in to lend expertise for a big NGI initiative on trust, for helping draft the digital agenda for a EU-level think tank, for figuring out the ecosystem promoting ethical AI development, and for a digital consumer rights initiative at the German federal ministry of justice and consumer protection. Some of these are longer-running, deeper projects; others just interviews or conversations.

All of a sudden I find myself an expert around smart city governance and IoT consumer protection and more. How the heck did I get here? Cue the impostor syndrome. I’m deep down the Dunning-Kruger curve to only know how many things I don’t know, and that not much is certain. But such is life, and as much as I can’t tell my parents what any of these subject areas really mean: It’s ok.

It’s very good to be in those conversations. To be in the room where it happens.

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Data about me

Language matters. It frames how we think about issues. In that sense, I’m grateful for a reminder that I certainly need to hear occasionally.

As Sarah Gold, founder of Projects by IF, keeps pointing out, talking about “my data” won’t get us far, and instead we should talk about “data about me”. Here’s why (via Martin Tisné):

“Reframing ‘my data’ to ‘data about me’ is a really helpful way to move beyond the simplistic, dualistic and dangerous notion of personal data as a monetisable resource towards a recognition of the inseparable nature of data and self”

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Data about me in my city

A few months old (and in German), but two points of view that I'll just offer side by side as they pretty much sum up the state of play in smart cities these days.

For context, this is about a smart city partnership in which Huawei implement their technologies in Duisburg, a mid-sized German city with a population of about 0.5 million. The (apparently non-binding) partnership agreement includes Smart Government (administration), Smart Port Logistics, Smart Education (education & schools), Smart Infrastructure, 5G and broadband, Smart Home, and the urban internet of things.

Note: The quotes and paraphrases are roughly translated from the original German article.

Jan Weidenfeld from the Marcator Institute for China Studies:

"As a city administration, I'd be extremely cautious here." China has a fundamentally different societal system, and a legal framework that means that every Chinese company, including Huawei, is required to open data streams to the communist party. (...)

Weidenfeld points out that 5 years ago, when deliberations about the project began, China was a different country than it is today. At both federal and state levels, the thinking about China has evolved. (...)

"Huawei Smart City is a large-scale societal surveillance system, out of which Duisburg buys the parts that are legally fitting - but this context mustn't be left out when assessing the risks."

Anja Kopka, media spokesperson for the city of Duisburg:

The city of Duisburg doesn't see "conclusive evidence" regarding these security concerns.The data center meets all security requirements for Germany, and is certified as such. "Also, as a municipal administration we don't have the capacity to reliably assess claims of this nature." Should federal authorities whose competencies include assessing such issues provide clear action guidelines for dealing with Chinese partners in IT, then Duisburg will adapt accordingly.

The translation is a bit rough around the edges, but I think you'll get the idea:

We have experts warning, but the warnings are of such a structural nature that they're kinda of to big and obvious to prove. Predators will kill other animals to eat. 🤷‍♂️

By the time abuse or any real issue can be proven, it'd be inherently to late to do anything about it. We have a small-ish city administration that knows perfectly well that they don't have the capacity to do their due diligence, so they just take their partners' word for it.

The third party here, of course, being a global enterprise with an operating base in a country that has a unique political and legal system that in many ways isn't compatible with any notion of human rights, let alone data rights, that otherwise would be required in the European Union.

And it's along these two axes — imbalance of size and incompatibility of culture — that I think we see the most interesting, and most potentially devastating conflicts:

• A giant corporation runs circles around a small-to-mid sized city. I think it's fair to assume that only because of Chinese business etiquette was the CFO of one of Huawei's business units even flown out to Duisburg to sign the initial memorandum of understanding with Duisburg's mayor Sören Link. The size and power differential is so ridiculous that it might just as well have been the Head of Sales EMEA or some other mid-level manager that took that meeting. After all, for Chinese standards, a city of a population of a half-million wouldn't even considered a third tier city. Talk about an uneven playing field.
• The vast differences of (for lack of a better word, and broadly interpreted) culture in the sense of business realities and legal framework and strategic thinking between a large corporation with global ambitions and backed by a highly centralized authoritarian state on one side, and the day-to-day of a German town are overwhelming. So much so, that I don't think that the mayor of Duisburg and his team are even aware of all the implicit assumptions and biases they bring to the table.

And it's not an easy choice at some level: Someone comes in and offers much needed resources that you need and don't have any chance to get, desperation might force you to make some sub-prime decisions. But this comes at a price — the question is just how bad that price will be over the long term.

I'm not convinced that any smart city of this traditional approach is worth implementing, or even might be worth implementing; probably not. But of all the players, the one backed by a non-democratic regime with a track record of mass surveillance and human rights violations is surely at the bottom of the list.

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Data about me and my genome

Back in the day, I sent a sample of my spit to genome sampling company 23andme. (I just checked, I even gave an interview or two about it at the time. Of course public broadcaster link rot has long since killed the URLs, sigh.) At the time it was a mix of genuine curiosity, and of seeing how much data I’d actually be sharing about me. It was a calculated risk, and in the same position I’d decide exactly like this again.

Now that was seven years ago, and I’m a little more grizzled when it comes to aggressive monetization strategies as well as what happens to data when a company goes belly-up or gets acquired. So recently I exported my data the data about me that 23andme has and requested a full account and data deletion. (Here’s the direct link to do so. It’s a few clicks, but seems to work smoothly.)

And while I did, and suggested M to do the same, M sent me this screenshot of a particularly absurd (albeit probably harmless) commercial partnership I hadn’t spotted:

Image: via Michelle

Which is really all you need to know. When companies get a little desperate, your data data about you is at high risk and it might be time to get the hell out of dodge.

See also: Ancestry Branches Out into Genetic Health Screening (WIRED):

“Company executives have hinted at a health play as far back as 2014. The following year, it briefly hosted a beta version of a generational health database (confusingly also named AncestryHealth). And in a partnership that ended last year, Ancestry collaborated with Google-owned Calico to comb customer DNA for genes that affect human lifespan.“

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Signals

Some random — not, of course not random at all! Just not obviously connected! — signals: What would happen if you combined Mazzucato's missions-driven orgs with the ideas in NYC 2140, Picketty, GDPR, public interest tech and sustainability?

I don't know, and it’s a wild mix of categories, but it feels like something I'd like to see explored more. It feels like there are strong themes connecting all those things, and offering glimpses at Very Good Futures.

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Miscellanea

• Meet Piaggio’s personal cargo bot, Gita. This seems like in 5-10 years we’ll see good (and good value) products in that space. For now, it seems like mainly an expensive, very limited affection. But I’m not going to lie: If we’d had access to a stroller/cargo combo bot when little K was younger, one that was able to master stairs, it would’ve unlocked the city in ways that would’ve been amazing and I’d have totally gotten one. Remember that many if not most cities really aren’t built for accessibility at all. I think I can list all Berlin stations that even have an elevator off the top of my head. (I can’t really. But you get my point.)
• SF to establish Office of Emerging Technology. Good, but the initial funding of a measly 250K seems… homeopathic?
• Notes to Young Goresighters. Solid mini primer that Scott Smith wrote up in 2011.
• This economist has a plan to fix capitalism. It's time we all listened. WIRED’s profile of Mariana Mazzuccato makes her seem really fun & spot on. The European Commission is now using her model of “mission driven orgs” to structure its funding activities so that’s exciting. One of the areas is carbon-neutral smart cities, by the way.
• The reflections in a pop star’s eyes told a selfie stalker exactly how to find her 👀😱 Talk about threat models!
• Compost.net is a Berlin community compost network. Didn’t know that was a thing, but it is now, and it seems… dunno, sensible? (via Chris Adams)
• The climate crisis and the internet: Michelle just started a new series on her blog to explore pathways to a better, carbon-neutral internet.
• Job klaxon! In Berlin? Help Prototype Fund with comms.
• Job klaxon! In London? Join NESTA as a senior researcher for their Explorations team.

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If you’d like to work with me or have a chat to explore collaborations, let’s chat! 

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Currently reading: The Beauty of Everyday Things (Soetsu Yanagi), Lost Japan (Alex Kerr), Cibola Burn (James S. A. Corey)

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What's next?

Some conference action: In October, I’ll be speaking at the FES event “digital capitalism” in Berlin, on smart cities. In November, Tech Care in Copenhagen, the Edgeryders Festival (Berlin) as well as at a Körber Stiftung event in Hamburg. And in December, of course the annual ThingsCon conference in Rotterdam. Overview here.

Enjoy your day!

Yours truly,
Peter

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Who writes here? Peter Bihr explores the impact of emerging technologies — like Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence. He is the founder of The Waving Cat, a boutique research, strategy & foresight firm. He co-founded ThingsCon, a non-profit that explores fair, responsible, and human-centric technologies for IoT and beyond. Peter was a Mozilla Fellow (2018-19) and is currently an Edgeryders fellow. He tweets at @peterbihr. Interested in working together? Let’s have a chat.

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Header image: Efe Kurnaz