As I have stated for years,
IoT is all about information. On its own, IoT is not the most
useful technology, as the raw data that it gathers may not be all
that useful to the average person.
Imagine being told the exact
temperature of your living room every minute of every day for an
entire year. You will have over a million readings, but without the
information being put into some contexts, such as graphs, charts or
other usable forms, most people will have little use for this
information. IoT is being
used effectively by just about every industry and by millions of
consumers each day. When your Nest device can adjust your
temperature to save you money, it is doing so by gathering
sensor-based information and acting on it. The same holds for
retailers who use IoT to increase their displays' appeal, a
restaurant using IoT to ensure that their food doesn't spoil and a
nuclear energy provider using it to prevent unwanted
accidents.
So, it sounds like IoT is the
best thing to ever happen to civilization, right?
Well, there is a not so great
side.
Remember the protests from
the Google employees? Thanks to IoT-based solutions, their AI
solutions would not likely be nearly as effective without gathering
tons of information. However, no one seems to mention that
part. And, there are also
much less dramatic examples of IoT being involved in not-so-great
solutions. When one talks about the world of Automation, IoT has
its tentacles into just about every solution. When a robot replaces
a human at an Amazon warehouse, it does so only with an astounding
amount of IoT information. During the design process, IoT allows
for the necessary information to program the device to be
collected. Once the product is installed, sensors ensure that the
device is operating efficiently and is not running into other
workers. Should people in the IoT world feel guilty about being
part of a solution that displaces workers?
It also does not stop at
blue-collar jobs being affected. IoT is used at many different
industrial facilities to provide real-time information about
temperature, humidity, the presence of humans and dozens of other
variables. We always talk about how this improves safety and
productivity, but what we are saying is that you may not need to
have as many employees on-site as before, are we not?
Think about a world where IoT
is genuinely ubiquitous. Every machine in your home, office and
school is monitored, every street light, traffic light, pump and
valve are all adequately maintained due to IoT. What do you think
happens to the headcount of those whose living involves servicing
and installing these devices when they last much longer and do not
break down as often? We can try to spin it about how much
productivity gains and better return on investment you get for your
purchases, and that is true. However, we fail to mention that this
gain comes at the expense of people losing their jobs.
IoT will make
science fiction movies come to life
In past material, I have
referenced the movie "The Minority Report" before. In the film,
where a futuristic society is shown, IoT is behind most of the
technology. This ranges from identifying people with eye scans,
displays that recognize people at stores, self-driving cars and
more. While some of these things may seem like progress to many,
they seem like a lack of privacy to others.
Imagine how many times in a day,
you may be recognized or identified in such a society. Does it seem
like a huge stretch that some will fear that "big brother" may not
always legally use this information?
Will you ever genuinely have
privacy if audio sensors, a big part of IoT deployments in some
devices, can record your conversations? Combine this with your
location being recorded, and one starts to think that some of this
technology may not be as great as the movies make it sound.
How much responsibility should
the IoT industry take for a potential loss in personal privacy? We
can always claim that we are only a small part of a solution, and
we have no control over how our devices may be used. While there is
some validity to that statement, it is also a relatively convenient
way of excusing our role in the whole process.
What should the IoT
industry do?
I don't think that anyone is
proposing that we stop selling IoT sensors, gateways, network
connectivity and software anytime soon. As well, one can always
look at the negative side of any device or software if you want.
For example, the automobile has done so much for society, so should
we stop building them because some people decided to use them as a
weapon in a murderous rage? I do think that the IoT industry needs to take some
responsibility in some cases. We need not deny that our products
are used to gather information for machines that may cause
destruction, whether in the form of losing their job or a weapon of
mass destruction. Unlike the team at Google that we are developing
software, many IoT companies have zero influence in the end
products built with their components inside.
So, no one is proposing that we
stop selling products that truly help the world become a better
place. We need to start accepting our role; however, in some of the
products that are not doing so. You can't claim how you are part of
a technology that is changing the world without accepting the fact
that, in some cases, those changes are used in destructive
ways.
