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Have you heard about Newton’s bucket, Einstein’s elevator and Schrödinger’s cat ? They are three of the most famous thought experiments in scientific history. Thought experiments are narrative devices used to think about the real world through imagined scenarios and have long been used in science, mathematics, ethics, literature and philosophy. Famous works such as George Orwell's 1984, about a dystopian surveillance society and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, imagining the effects of genetic technology on the human race, are literary thought experiments that build worlds around socio-cultural investigation of specific technologies. Thought experiments can be used in Design Research to help think through the impacts of emerging technologies by constructing narrative scenarios around the use or misuse of technologies.

A form of literary thought experiment, Pastiche scenarios are a way to investigate contexts of use and socio-cultural themes around technology by drawing upon well-known fictional characters. Traditional HCI and UX Researchers often create personas as a way to explore users of technology. Personas can be flat and lack the richness and depth that comes with real users of technology. Well known fictional characters possess rich descriptions, back stories, personality and a wealth of situations and contexts to draw on. Fictional characters allow the designer to avoid stereotypes around age, gender and social class by letting he character to drive the use of the technology instead of relying on known or learnt biases. This blog post describes three Pastiche Scenarios that were used as thought experiments to explore socio-cultural contexts for a technology called Data Gates, by letting fictional characters drive the use of the technology.

Data Gates are a set of Smart Trusted Labels for the IoT that allow people to create their own privacy rules for the storage, collection and use of personal data. For example, data gates would be put up in the corner of the kitchen to prevent a smart assistant from uploading private family conversations to the cloud during certain hours of the day. Placing an NFC tag on my mobile phone could block online advertisements when I browse the web, or perhaps city officials might mark safe spaces such as a park or a bus stand where face-recognition technology would not be used on citizens. Initially, the Data Gates were imagined as a functional smart tag that could control IoT privacy in user-defined spaces. However, the initial functional diagrams and use-cases for the Data Gates were more about the technical and operational working of a Data Gate rather than the socio-cultural implications about how a Data Gate might be used or misused in a specific context. If Data Gates were produced and deployed in the real world, how would they be used? Would they be exploited for criminal purposes? What would the impacts of the new technology be on people's lives? To explore some of these questions, the three thought experiments described build scenarios around the Data Gates technology within three different imagined contexts of use.

 

 

 

Scenario 1 : Sheldon and Amy

How can we occupy different digital spaces in shared physical spaces? For example, how can a couple that lives together in the same home keep their digital lives private? I developed a scenario based on an episode from the popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory that explored themes around consent and domestic relationships in the smart home. The protagonist, Sheldon Cooper is a geeky scientist who works at a research lab with his girlfriend Amy. Sheldon and his friends are a hyperbole of the nerd stereotype - brilliant but socially awkward. Sheldon has a clinical and highly objective view of personal boundaries and sees his relationship with Amy as a contract. When Sheldon and Amy first start dating, Sheldon presents her with a list of Terms and Conditions that both parties must agree and sign to start the relationship.

In the episode 'The Brain Bowl Incubation’(2016), Sheldon wants to have a baby with Amy because he believes that their child will be a genius. Sheldon unsuccessfully tries to seduce Amy but his obsessive, non-consensual tactics end up turning Amy away. Sheldon admits that he has been tracking Amy’s menstrual cycle to find out when she is fertile. I adapted the opening lines of this scene to explore how Amy might use a Data Gate to draw boundaries in her relationship and negotiate consent with Sheldon. Amy’s Data Gate is shaped like a pin-badge - a kind of brooch that she can attach to her clothing. She can program the Data Gate to create rules about how Sheldon uses his Menstrual tracking app. She programs the Data Gate to stop Sheldon from using the Menstrual tracking app near her and, using the power of the Data Gate threatens to shut down the relationship if she catches him tracking her cycle.

As our homes becomes increasingly data-driven, how will we negotiate personal data boundaries in a domestic space? Personal relationships are mediated through digital devices, with couples and families often sharing devices, data and accounts. Domestic relationships are sites of negotiated trust and shared digital spaces open the door for tracking a partners location on a fitness app or their food habits say, on a smart fridge. In my first phase of research, for example, one of my participants was afraid that having an IoT device at home might mean his wife would find out that he was smoking and snacking from the fridge when she wasn’t at home. He felt that his wife might track him through the connected home.

The Sheldon and Amy scenario revealed how data boundaries might be negotiated in domestic relationships using physical objects that behave like Talismans or Amulets. Personal items such as brooches, badges, lockets, rings and chains have deep emotional significance (Wallace, 2007) and have been used since ancient times as seals of trust - as symbol of identity, authority, power, as protection. Programmable personal items embedded with digital functions such as NFC-based privacy rules could be used as a personal keepsake of personal data preferences. For example, a Data Gate locket around my neck could store rules for my IoT devices such as that the home TV can’t record my voice or that the fridge can’t store my data on the cloud. Bringing the object near a device would then enforce the personal data rules embedded in the digital amulet. In this way, different members of the household could store different rules for the home devices and each person’s bespoke rules would be triggered by the personal object when they were in proximity of the IoT device. The Data Gates could also act as a talking point for family members or couples to discuss and negotiate how they wanted to share data.

Scenario 2 : The Godfather

The Godfather is a stereotypical criminal character and mob leader in Francis Ford Coppola’s films (1972). As the leader of a criminal gang, the godfather is both highly feared and highly respected by his family, friends and henchmen who he controls using his influence and criminal tactics. As a well-known anti-hero and a familiar extreme character trope, the Godfather provided a background to explore misuse cases of the Data Gates technology. The borrowing of the Godfather- an emotionally complex, morally questionable criminal character, allows for conflict, an element of narrative that has been omitted from Ubiquitous Computing scenarios but is seen in science fiction, film and literature. The misuse case serves as a though experiment, asking the question what if a criminal had access to the kind of technology described by the data gates? How would he use the Data Gates and what form would they take? The Godfather’s Data Gate takes the form of a golden ring, given to him by a friend as a gift. The Data Gate is a kind of protective talisman that protects and provides power to the Godfather in digital space, the way that his henchmen protect him in physical space. As long as the ring is on his finger, he is invisible to government surveillance. He uses the data gates to stop the government from tracking his location, to plant a false location trails and evade arrest.

The pastiche scenarios is an investigation of a moral or ethical problem in the form of a moral though experiment. Does the technology have the potential to be misused and what kind of effects might a misuse of the technology have? Is it really unethical to use the Data Gates to preserve an individual’s privacy, even if that individual might be a criminal? The scenario got me thinking about who the real criminal is – is the government spying on citizens or is it the Godfather trying to exert his right to privacy? Data right such as the right to privacy and the right to be forgotten could muddle understandings of criminality and privacy as could new resistance technologies that provide ways to hide from digital surveillance where hiding itself becomes an admission of wrongdoing. The need to hide in our own lives is becoming increasingly prevalent. There are VPN’s, browser plug-ins and apps to hide our identities from internet trackers. There is a rise in artists that work on creative ways of hiding from face recognition, AI and CCTV cameras. As privacy and surveillance create more anxiety, how far will we go in creating technologies of hiding? Importantly, what effects do technologies of resistance have on power structures? Does a device such as the Godfather’s ring have the ability to affect surveillance power structures or does it end up reinforcing the status quo? As Scott suggests, everyday acts of resistance can often end up reinforcing power structures. A Data Gate ring such as the one the Godfather uses, could be seen as a technology of resistance but one that stands within, not against the current surveillance paradigm, continuing to reinforce the normality of a government spying on its citizens. The world in which the Data Gate becomes an object of resistance is within an already existing surveillance state. The Godfather’s use of the Data Gate ring reflects the everyday realities of a resistive citizen that lives under a hegemonic state power that uses IoT technologies to control and track citizens in a way that blurs the boundaries between good and bad citizens.

Scenario 3 : Scrooge

One of the characters I explored as a user of the Data Gates was ‘Ebenezer Scrooge’ – the Christmas-hating miser from Charles Dicken’s ‘A Christmas Carol’(2008). I wanted to investigate concepts around data, memory and money in the Internet of Things(IoT) and Scrooge’s personality offered an interesting set of scenarios to explore. Computing Infrastructure today has the almost haunting effect of Dickens’ ghosts- bringing up our past and divine our futures in ways that are creepy and certainly most often without our consent. With legislation such as the right to be forgotten ( Andrew and Baker; 2021; Jones, 2018) enforcing rules for engaging with our past, data rights may well be monetized and converted into economic opportunities. Scrooge’s personality as ‘the miser’ and a person who is confronted by a past he fears helped explore what digital redemption (Jones, 2018) might cost. One of the short scenarios describes Scrooge’s encounter with a Smart Fridge. The Smart Fridge in question has the ability to playback and delete memories of Scrooge’s past, but only for a price

“Delete the last 5 minutes of memory” Scrooge said while brandishing his right to be forgotten data gate at the fridge.

“That will be 3.30 for the local memory wipe and 4.50 for the cloud memory wipe. “That’ll be 7 pounds and 80 cents in all debited from your e-wallet for your convenience. Please click agree to proceed.”

“What? 8 quid, are you mental? It was 4 quid an hour ago.”

“We have updated our terms and conditions. You will have received a notification for the update. Cloud storage wipes are now chargeable separately from local wipes. “

“Bah! Humbug. Do the local wipe. Do It now.“

The economic value in wanting to forget the person we may have been might well be exploited in future business models in the IoT. The scenario raises questions about how a monetised data-driven system can co-exist with privacy rights, user-controlled data practices and interactive consent models. Economic incentives could clash and compete with legislation, while feeding on human needs such as wanting to forget the bad parts of our past or wanting to construct new versions of our digital selves. What happens when the creepiness of smart devices is compounded by device manufacturer’s economic policies? How does Scrooge’s miserly personality affect Scrooges negotiations about the value of his data and what would he be willing to trade for his legal rights? What place do data rights charters such as GDPR have in a data marketplace? What effect would the Fridge have on Scrooge if he was forced to confront his past self because it was too expensive to delete the stored memories? Pastiche Scenarios can open up HCI research in a rich way by discussing not only socio-cultural themes but also economic and political issues around technology development. The scenario with Scrooge helped unpack how the Data Gates technology might fit in to new economic models for IoT technology.

The construction of thought experiments around the Data Gates allowed new concepts, questions and consequences to emerge as lines of inquiry. The Data Gates technology evolved into forms that were more socio-culturally embedded, sculpted more by the contexts in which they were used and by the fictional characters who used them. Rather than being a functional, diagrammatic description, the technology took on new forms and artefacts that were aesthetic, emotional and cultural. For example, the character Amy wears the Data gates as a brooch, an item of jewellery that could be seen to have personal, protective, emotional, aesthetic and cultural significance rather than simply a functional purpose. The Data Gate, in this case behaves as a kind of amulet or talisman that signifies protection from bad actors.

 

 

In the case of the Godfather, the Data Gate takes the form of a golden ring and is misused for criminal purposes. What consequences would a technology such as Data Gates have on law and order? Such a scenario makes it possible to think through the implications of personal privacy control, questioning the ambiguous and contentious nature of privacy itself. The scenario provides an entry point into unpacking how emerging forms of personal data control might balance privacy with security. In this way, thought experiments can provide rich and fertile ground for the investigation of the impacts of emerging technologies.

 

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