The future ubiquity of cameras

Access to cameras has greatly increased in recent years and will likely continue to increase. While I do not have any data describing the rate of increase in the number of images recorded, I expect that increase in recent years is massive. Improvement in the ability of computers to organize and interpret images, however, is not commensurate with the increase in the volume of images. Google Images can detect human faces in images from a limited number of angles and categorize images as photos, graphics or line drawings based on content, but all other information about the image is appended as text tags. This is akin to indexing web pages using only the header meta elements.

Jorge Luis Borges describes in one of his stories the Aleph: a location through which all of the universe can be observed from every angle, simultaneously and without confusion. The ubiquity of cameras is facilitating observation of the world from more perspectives, but the limited ability of computers to index the world’s images does not permit humans to navigate and understand the volume of images. Images still must be organized by humans (supposedly, most of the security cameras in the Louvre are fake, as it would be too costly to provide enough staff to watch all of the monitors). A world with ubiquitous cameras, but not the automated systems required to organize and interpret the images produced, allows everything to be hidden in public.

 

 

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