Author Meets Critics: Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

By 2020 our world will be filled with connected devices. This “internet of things” consists of human-made objects with small power supplies, embedded sensors, and an address on the internet. Most of these networked devices are everyday items that are sending and receiving data about their conditions and our behavior. Unlike mobile phones and computers, devices on these networks are not designed for deliberate social interaction, content creation, or cultural consumption. The bulk of these networked devices are items that communicate with other devices: coffeemakers, car parts, clothes, and a plethora of other products. This will not be an internet you experience through a browser. Indeed, as the technology develops, many of us will be barely aware that so many things around us have power, are sensing, and are sending and receiving data. In Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), Philip N. Howard envisions a new world order emerging from this great transformation in the technologies around us.

One industry analyst estimates that the internet of things will have an installed base of twenty-six billion devices by 2020, only a billion of which will be personal computers, tablets, and smartphones. More security services, and activists, will have drones and “nanosats”. A report from the OECD on the internet of things estimates that a family of four will go from having an average of ten devices connected to the internet now to twenty-five in 2017 and fifty by 2022. Every one of those will have sensors and a radio that can broadcast information about the time, the device’s location, its status, and how it has been used.

Should we fear or welcome the internet’s evolution? The “internet of things” is the rapidly growing network of everyday objects made smart with sensors and internet addresses. Soon we will live in a pervasive yet invisible network of everyday objects that communicate with each other. Howard calls this new era a Pax Technica. Drawing on evidence from around the world, he illustrates how the internet of things can be used to repress and control people. Yet he also demonstrates that if we actively engage with the governments and businesses building the internet of things we can design have a chance to build a new kind of internet—and a more open society.

Sub Unit

• Communication and Technology

Chair

• Philip Howard, U of Washington

Respondents

• Christian Sandvig, U of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• Tarleton L. Gillespie, Cornell U

• Zizi A. Papacharissi, U of Illinois - Chicago