26 June 2025

How should markets, businesses, groups, and individuals be regulated or limited differently in the face of diminishing state power and the intelligification (Verbeek, p217) and networking of the material world?

Verbeek’s writing explains that the designers of these “smart” devices need to implement more security features. For example, Google’s glasses should have a feature that would flash a light when the facial recognition feature is on. This is to prevent the user of the glasses to secretly search for the individual they are attempting to identify. They also should implement a redesign of the glasses to only allow facial recognition when there is direct eye contact for over 5 seconds. Verbeek wrote that these changes would become a responsible design. There needs to be more awareness and control by individuals with these devices. Google should provide a feature that would allow individuals to consent or not consent to their faces being recognizable. With “smart” technology and higher intelligent devices, the government should focus more on the quality of allowing the integration of the device or technology rather than just giving simple permission to release. With this, it would require the experimentation of new technology. The experiments would show the correct balance between the ability to accept the change and to preserve what we find valuable. The boundaries between real life and the rapid growth of technology are becoming blurred every day. The government, designers, companies, and the markets selling the technology need to take accountability and cooperate with each other to create regulations that keep citizens safe. Instead of fighting against the development of technology, development of code of conduct as well as etiquette need to evolve with the technology.

Reference

Verbeek, P.-P. (2015). Designing the public sphere: Information technologies and the politics of mediation. In L. Floridi (Ed.), The Onlife Manifesto: Being human in a hyperconnected era (pp. 217–231). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04093-6_21