Ring Log

(if: visits is 1)[Ring™ Log is an experiment in |prompt>[(link-show: "speculative surveillance", ?Amazon)].{(live: 3s)[(replace: ?prompt)[(text-style: "fade-in-out")[(link-show: "speculative surveillance", ?Amazon)]](stop:)]} [(replace: ?prompt)[speculative surveillance]Amazon's Ring™ doorbells are motion-activated high definition surveillance cameras. Once triggered, Ring™ cameras transmit video to the Ring™ app and Ring™ servers, where the video footage is preserved for (link-show: "future viewing", ?whatif).](Amazon| [What happens when Amazon begins using AI object detection to identify, categorize, and report what the Ring™ (link-show: "camera sees", ?Halloween)?](whatif| [Imagine a year from now, Halloween night, October 31, 2020. What would Ring™ see? What would Ring™ report? And what happens when the program fails, as programs always do? Mark Sample (link-reveal: "@samplereality")[(goto-url: "https://www.twitter.com/samplereality")] October 2019 (display: "Footer")](Halloween|]\ (else:)\ [Ring™ Log is an experiment in speculative surveillance. Amazon's Ring™ doorbells are motion-activated high definition surveillance cameras. Once triggered, Ring™ cameras transmit video to the Ring™ app and Ring™ servers, where the video footage is preserved for future viewing. What happens when Amazon begins using AI object detection to identify, categorize, and report what the Ring™ camera sees? Imagine a year from now, Halloween night, October 31, 2020. What would Ring™ see? What would Ring™ report? And what happens when the program fails, as programs always do? Mark Sample (link-reveal: "@samplereality")[(goto-url: "https://www.twitter.com/samplereality")] October 2019 (display: "Footer")]

(if: visits is 1)[The people and objects "identified" by the Ring™ AI are randomly pulled from a JavaScript array. The items in the array are inspired by actual Halloween costumes as well as by posts I've seen shared on NextDoor. The scrambling text effect is adapted from Everest Pipkin's poem "If Jupiter had turned into a Star" ((link-reveal: "external link")[(goto-url: "http://taper.badquar.to/2/if_jupiter_had_turned_into_a_star.html")]), published in issue #2 of the digital poetry journal Taper ((link-reveal: "external link")[(goto-url: "http://taper.badquar.to/2/index.html")]). Like all works published in Taper, the code of "If Jupiter had turned into a Star" is freely available to use and modify. Similarly the code for Ring™ Log is (link-show: "freely available to use and modify", ?copyright). [ ####Copyright Notice Ring™ Log, Copyright (C) 2019 Mark Sample Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved. This file is offered as-is, without any warranty. (display: "Footer")](copyright|]\ (else:)[The people and objects "identified" by the Ring™ AI are randomly pulled from a JavaScript array. The items in the array are inspired by actual Halloween costumes as well as by posts I've seen shared on NextDoor. The scrambling text effect is adapted from Everest Pipkin's poem "If Jupiter had turned into a Star" ((link-reveal: "external link")[(goto-url: "http://taper.badquar.to/2/if_jupiter_had_turned_into_a_star.html")]), published in issue #2 of the digital poetry journal Taper ((link-reveal: "external link")[(goto-url: "http://taper.badquar.to/2/index.html")]). Like all works published in Taper, the code of "If Jupiter had turned into a Star" is freely available to use and modify. Similarly the code for Ring™ Log is freely available to use and modify. ####Copyright Notice Ring™ Log, Copyright (C) 2019 Mark Sample Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved. This file is offered as-is, without any warranty. (display: "Footer")]

(css: "font-size: 16px;")[(if: (passage:)'s tags contains "intro")[**Intro** | ](else:)[ [[Intro->Intro]] | ](if: (passage:)'s tags contains "inspiration")[**Inspiration** | ](else:)[ [[Inspiration]] | ](if: (passage:)'s tags contains "tech")[**Technical** | ](else:)[ [[Technical]] | ](link-reveal: "Ring™ Log")[(goto-url: "https://fugitivetexts.net/ring/index.html")]]

(if: visits is 1)[My first engagement with speculative surveillance was the NSA PRISM BOT ((link-reveal: "external link")[(goto-url: "https://twitter.com/NSA_PRISMbot")]). This Twitter bot imagined what the NSA's PRISM program, exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013, might be finding out about (link-show: "everyday U.S. citizens", ?neoliberal). [PRISM, ECHELON, X-Keyscore and other mass surveillance programs are run by the government. But relying on the state to surveil us is old-school. The proper way to surveil in the age of neoliberalization is to (1) cede what the government used to do to private corporations like Amazon and (2) outsource the surveillance to ourselves. This is exactly what (link-show: "the Ring™ doorbell/camera systems", ?ai) do.](neoliberal| [At the same time that we are willingly offering ourselves and our homes to the tech oligopolies like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook, these very same companies are aggressively pursuing artificial intelligence programs to make sense of the massive amounts of data they extract from their users. Voice recognition, facial recognition, object detection, and even gait recognition are just some of these new technologies that have quickly become part of (link-show: "everyday life", ?suburban).](ai| [Ring™ Log critiques corporate surveillance, but it is also a tribute to contemporary suburban life. The work is inspired by a number of creepy neighorhoods over the years, both fictional and real: *The Twilight Zone*, *The Stepford Wives*, Night Vale, and just about every other post (link-show: "on NextDoor", ?nextdoor)[, where neighbors love to share their Ring videos](nextdoor|. (display: "Footer")](suburban| ]\ (else:)[My first engagement with speculative surveillance was the NSA PRISM BOT ((link-reveal: "external link")[(goto-url: "https://twitter.com/NSA_PRISMbot")]). This Twitter bot imagined what the NSA's PRISM program, exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013, might be finding out about everyday U.S. citizens. PRISM, ECHELON, X-Keyscore and other mass surveillance programs are run by the government. But relying on the state to surveil us is old-school. The proper way to surveil in the age of neoliberalization is to (1) cede what the government used to do to private corporations like Amazon and (2) outsource the surveillance to ourselves. This is exactly what the Ring™ doorbell/camera systems do. At the same time that we are willingly offering ourselves and our homes to the tech oligopolies like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook, these very same companies are aggressively pursuing artificial intelligence programs to make sense of the massive amounts of data they extract from their users. Voice recognition, facial recognition, object detection, and even gait recognition are just some of these new technologies that have quickly become part of everyday life. Ring™ Log critiques corporate surveillance, but it is also a tribute to contemporary suburban life. The work is inspired by a number of creepy neighborhoods over the years, both fictional and real: *The Twilight Zone*, *The Stepford Wives*, Night Vale, and just about every other post on NextDoor, where neighbors love to share their Ring videos. (display: "Footer")]