Business
2016-08-09
Abstract
The ethical issues of the usage the Google Glasses are described in this paper. Initially, this product has been introduced as a helper for ordinary people at work as well as in the everyday life. However, some functions of the Google Glasses are considered as dangerous for the users as well as surrounding people. It has caused the prohibitions of the usage the glasses in public places and on the road in different countries (US, UK, others). One can suppose that the necessity of the Google Glasses is quite ambiguous. On the one hand, new technological product can help people in specific fields (medicine, education and others). On the other hand, the Google Glasses can be considered as a tool for commercial and home spying that violates human rights and freedoms. Nowadays, Google Glasses cause quite many conflicts, which are related to the private life and business ethics. In this case, analyze product must be improved in order to avoid causing legal issues and to be useful for people without hidden danger.
Introduction
This paper is devoted to the issue of the Google Glasses and their possible impact on the ethics in business. There are controversial or even contradictory opinions about the use of Google Glasses nowadays. On the one hand, it is a great technology that allows improving work and everyday life.
There are many advantages of this gadget. For example, the first of them is the opportunity to receive latest news and information, the second is the access to the social networks (Twitter, Facebook and Google+). Also, there is a personalized search Google Now and maps and navigation service in the glasses.
On the other hand, this gadget can harm the user’s personal life. The gadget has an access to wider information about the user, his family, life, interests, work and even his location at a particular time. It can be considered as surveillance of the user without his or her consent.
It should be noted that the price of the Google Glasses is quite high. Only reach or successful people, businessmen, politics can afford such gadget. The personal safety is quite important for this group of society.
Thus, an excessive openness and data collection through the Google Glasses can be considered by the users as an infringement of their rights and freedoms.
In this case, it needs to analyze all possible positive and negative aspects of the usage of Google Glasses at work and home and answer the following questions:
Whether the ordinary citizens need the Google Glasses and whether their relatively high price is reasonable?
Werther Google glasses are a real threat to the privacy of the users?
Discussion
Google Glasses and their negative aspects
It should be noted that Google Glasses looks the most unusual and do not like the glasses in the conventional sense of this word. There is a prism near the right eye, on which a miniature projector provides all the information requested by the user. It does not look cumbersome, but strange enough. According to journalists, who tested the glasses, the people were ambivalent about the appearance of a person in the Google Glasses near them: many people openly wondered and were interested, some just looked away indifferently.
The most useful functions of the Google Glasses are the following:
an augmented reality,
voice control,]
navigation service.
The built-in camera keeps track of all that surrounds the user and can provide him with a lot of interesting information about it. In fact, the camera is not always provides exactly the desired information.
The voice control function is not always convenient for the user. Google Glasses can identify the voice command, only if the user says clearly and loudly. People around cannot understand why a man talks to himself loudly with a strange intonation. At the same time, all commands, spoken quickly or with loudness, cannot be accepted by gadget (Thom, 2016).
Another useful feature is navigation service. It can be used for drawing up the route and following on it. The map service, Google Maps, is used for it. The Google Glasses cope easily with navigation in big US cities, but sometimes it is very difficult to navigate on the terrain, since glasses determine the location only through the wireless networks.
At the same time, smart glasses do not forget to record all movements of its owner, that the majority of users does not like. In summary one can say that Google Glasses are not convenient enough, they very fast discharge, work with some errors and have a very limited set of features (Castle, 2014).
As we can see, Google Glasses collected a lot of information about the owner, which certainly creates discomfort for the user. The last one may even feel slighted in the context of freedom of movement and communication.
Ethical problems
Regulators of personal data protection in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Israel, Mexico and the European Union countries have sent Google’s CEO Larry Page a letter to clarify issues related to the possible threat of Google glasses to the privacy of citizens. Google Glasses have caused serious questions about privacy since 2013. It is disappointing that Google has not closely interacted about this technology with authorities, which are responsible for the protection of information. The US Congress has sent a similar letter to Google in May of 2013 (Cheng, 2016).
At the same time, the US has already introduced specific restrictions on the use the glasses in public places, especially in theaters, casinos, restaurants and cafes. The greatest concern for users causes the face recognition technology, on which enthusiasts have been working for several years.
The controversial ethical issues have been avoided until now. For example, it is quite difficult to take a photo of the person in the street without his consent, and the privacy settings have helped people in the social networks. But everything becomes different with the Google Glasses:
each user of glasses can take pictures of everyone, only with a wink,
each user can immediately identify people;
each user can find information about them on the Internet (Piltch, 2016).
In this case, the company Google has refused to sell facial recognition programs for the gadget Google Glasses in order to appease the people. However, the Google Glasses can easy to crack and put an operating system, which will not have any problems with the functionality and limitations. This is a big threat for people personal lives and society as a whole.
Also, the Google Glasses can be used in commercial and home spying due to the hidden camera that can negatively affect different kinds of business as well as private life of people in the whole country.
On the one hand, the criminals will be more difficult to hide from the law and hide the evidence. Moreover, awareness of the constant oversight can be a great crime prevention method.
On the other hand, a society very much likes a dystopia that has been described by Orwell in 1984 with a giant, consisting of multiple cameras, faceted eye of Big Brother.
Thus, the main problem lay in the fact that nowadays the possibility of Google Glasses is not largely controlled in terms of privacy and security. Users can take pictures and videos of other people without their knowing, which can lead to a ban on the use in certain places. In addition, it is not clear yet what will prevent hackers stealing user data.
The necessity of the Google Glasses
The Google Glasses have been on sale for nearly several years, but not many people have paid more than one thousand dollars per test case of the glasses. Thus, Google Glasses have not become popular among users still now.
One more reason of it is the strange look and inconvenient control panel. As it turns out, not everyone wants to look like a freak, wearing the futuristic piece of metal on the head and give commands into the void, turning his head, gesturing for no apparent reason. Moreover, surrounding people have quickly switched from surprise to dislike of such behavior. It is quite difficult to understand whether electronic glasses are active or not, because if they are active, they can keep a record of what is happening. And this is an invasion of privacy or the violation of privacy (Constant, 2016).
It does not matter that people normally come across the persons in the glasses in public places. In this case, everybody does not like to feel under the gun of the camcorder. The Google Glass has repeatedly provoked conflicts. It turns out that the majority of people consider the Google Glasses as a tool, with which Google tries to gather even more information about the user, to expand its sphere of influence beyond the displays and keyboards.
One can say that a device with a very limited list of features and applications, which are similar to the functionality of the smartphones, has no right to exist in the form of a single device. If the electronic glasses are not able to offer fundamentally new applications, they need to become invisible or weightless. Otherwise, if a user accidentally forgets to wear them, he will find that nothing will functionally lose (Forrest, 2014).
The current functions of the Google Glasses are not always necessary, and sometimes can be even useless to the user. Experience has shown that such a useful feature of glasses as maps and navigation can also be useless. For example, the UK Department of Transport has decided to prohibit connecting to the Internet through the Google Glasses on all the roads of the country.
One significant drawback of Google Glasses is the ability to view videos and navigate the social networks while driving. It may affect negatively on drivers and can increase the quantity of the road accidents.
For example, the Department of Transportation of the US has made a decision for the imposition of penalties for everyone, who uses the Google Glasses while driving. It should be noted that countries began to operate a similar ban on the use of mobile phones while driving ten years ago.
Thus, one can say that Google Glasses provide not so much exclusive functions or tools in comparison with the modern smartphones or other gadgets. At the same time, their price is much higher than the smartphones. This gadget can be even considered no more than an expensive toy for those, who are greatly involved in the technological world and like all new products of this industry (Gross, 2014).
Currently, wearable device is announced as a public project failed. It is still a crude consumer product from a marketing point of view, and users do not like it. But despite the misses, technology does not disappear. According to another opinion, Google Glasses will become a good helper for the people in the future with a great number of the useful functions. Researchers continue to work hard on the device until the product will be the top in the industry.
One can imagine that in a few years people will be wearing smart glasses in everyday life, which will be practically invisible. The tiny screen will be placed on the lenses. The electronics and battery will be neatly concealed in the frame. The device will be easy manage with a few fairly restrained gestures, eye movements, and if necessary, voice command. The product will not annoy others, but will complement the usual glasses, providing users with an easy navigation functionality or providing a translator function while traveling. The user-friendly version of the gadget can sure inspire software developers to create new and safe applications for the users.
Also, there is a future of the Google Glasses in the professional niches that require contact with the computer technology on the go:
scientific expeditions,
repair boxes,
storages,
server farms,
construction sites,
operating and other places, where the aim justifies the means.
Conclusion
In summary one can say that Google Glasses can be considered as the unethical not only for the business, but also for society as well. They can be used for spying and can negatively affect the private life of people. At the same time, Google Glasses as a new technology will not disappear. They will rather be improved and used for specific tasks. Handheld computers Google Glass could seriously change the approach to work in such fields as medicine or education.
Technologies are developing at a frantic pace, but so far no one knows all the ethical consequences that will occur in the private life of the individual after the widespread use of the new gadget. It is not possible to predict all ethical issues, which will arise, when each new gadget will be released. In this case, testing stage plays a significant role before the widespread use of the Google Glasses. One more recommendation is the first usage of new gadget in the limited industries.
References
Castle, C. (2014). The Ethics of the Unethical Google Glass: @stopthecyborgs Makes A Great Argument for Ethics Class at Computer School. MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY. Retrieved 8 August 2016, from https://musictechpolicy.com/2014/04/18/the-ethics-of-the-unethical-google-glass-stopthecyborgs-makes-a-great-argument-for-ethics-class-at-computer-school/
Cheng, T. (2016). Google Glass and the Ethics of Information. GeorgeTown.Edu. Retrieved 8 August 2016, from https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/cctp-748-fall2014/2014/04/16/432/
Constant, P. (2016). The Closer Google Glass Gets, the More Ethical Dilemmas Appear. The Stranger. Retrieved 8 August 2016, from http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/03/05/the-closer-google-glass-gets-the-more-ethical-dilemmas-appear
Forrest, C. (2014). The main reasons people hate Google Glass, and why they won't in a few years - TechRepublic. TechRepublic. Retrieved 8 August 2016, from http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-main-reasons-people-hate-google-glass-and-why-they-wont-in-a-few-years/
Gross, A. (2014). What’s the Problem with Google Glass? - The New Yorker. The New Yorker. Retrieved 8 August 2016, from http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/whats-the-problem-with-google-glass
Piltch, A. (2016). Seven Urgent Ethical Dilemmas for Google Glass. Yahoo.com. Retrieved 8 August 2016, from https://www.yahoo.com/tech/seven-urgent-ethical-dilemmas-for-google-glass-76631804521.html
Thom, C. (2016). The legal and ethical issues around using Google Glass for journalism in the UK. Pressgazette.co.uk. Retrieved 8 August 2016, from http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/chris-blackhurst-becomes-head-business-coverage-across-lebedev-titles/
