Invisibility Cloaks and Biases

A few months ago a video was launched showcasing a recent development on invisibility cloaks.  Like normal, the press ran wild.  “Dream No More – The Invisibility Cloak is Here”, lauded FutureofThings.com.  Other headlines included, “Invisibility Cloak Expected to Make a Grand Appearance!”, “Invisibility Cloak for Muggles in the Works” and my favorite, “Welcome to the Future!”

Modern media has long been enthusiastic about the arrival of purchasable invisibility.  Invisibility cloaks have been prominently featured in Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and the James Bond series’.  In each case only one exists, it’s given to the main protagonist, and it is always used for good.

Even when science fiction uses invisibility for “evil”, it isn’t that bad.  The main examples of villainous invisibility are The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, and the movie Predator.  The Invisible Man is more a tragic hero than a super villain, and was eventually adapted as a protagonist in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore.  When the Predator is eventually faced with Aliens in the Alien vs. Predator series, it also becomes a leading protagonist.  So the invisibility cloak not only makes you invisible, but it comes with the added benefit of making you moral as well.

The general public also seems to perceive these cloaking devices as singular items that only title characters use.  But in real life there is no protagonist; instead the main character is the one making a speculation.  You can tell this from the comments online to a YouTube video showing an invisibility cloak demonstration:

“Nice soo I can sneak in to anyones bathroom XD”

“It would be funny to “haunt” someone”

“I’d be the Robin Hood of casinos”

Fewer people seem concerned about having someone go into their bathroom, or about themselves getting haunted, or about their houses getting looted.  They seem quite optimistic.

But can one honestly believe that if invented, the government would even allow invisibility cloaks to be released to the public?  That perhaps the negative externalities could be compensated for in some sort of “pervert tax”?

We can try to imagine a world in which they would.

It’s the year 2040.  When Apple releases the iCloak, there will be no protagonist to give it to.  You will not get one because it will be too expensive. Three distinct groups of people will have access instead.

1)   The government. This group already has had it for a while, and uses it to spy on you.

2)   Rich old white men.  These people will play around with it for a while, and eventually come to spy on you.

3)   People desperate enough to spend their life savings on an invisibility cloak.  These people are really, really creepy.  They will not only spy on you, but take videos and mess with you as well.

So maybe when the iCloak 3.0 is made affordable, you’ll be able to return the favor.  But by that point the only visible people left to spy on are those too poor to even afford this version.  Eventually we will all be hovered to watch one 60-year-old beggar pee.

Welcome to the future!

Invisibility enthusiasts may be surprised to learn that we already have some type of “invisibility cloak”.  If an invisibility cloak is simply device that allows one to spy on people without being seen, then it’s called a video camera.

Video cameras have had the opposite problem.  They’ve been seen as the quintessential threat against privacy, the material representation of everything George Orwell hated.  When a new technological development occurs with video cameras, headlines read “Video Surveillance Catches up with Orwell’s 1984” (The Daily of UW), and “Big Brother is Watching your House” (London Today).  Surveillance state governments aren’t the only ones to use video cameras; so do super villains.  Horror movies have tapped into the paranoia that video cameras trigger; they were prominently featured in the movies Captivity, House of Wax, and the Saw Series.

So while people internalize invisibility cloaks to their use only, they consider video cameras to be available to everybody around them instead.

Perhaps headlines should read “Video Breakthrough Gives Individuals Defense from Government”.  Recently we have begun seeing cases of video cameras being used by civilians to catch government officials and police doing controversial acts, a reversal of the role Western Culture was expecting.  The government of Iran may have used a few security cams to prepare for protests, but a more impactful use of them was the filming of the killing of protester Neda Agha-Soltan, which went viral and created an outrage against the establishment.

This leads us to the question: why do we as a society seem to pick some technologies to internalize and others to do everything but internalize?  Perhaps it is due to “follow the leader” syndrome, where a few beginning stories make the distinction and everyone else follows.  But it is also likely that the authors of these stories had the same biases that future writers did.

This internal/external dichotomy shows up throughout other societal perceptions and expectations.  Guns are a great example, because a split in their perception is a leading factor in the great polarization in the legalization debate.  Those arguing against firearms often complain about their use by criminals, seeing them as objects of other people.  Meanwhile the gun rights advocates make arguments of individual ownership.  One side discusses guns as objects to internalize, but the other views them as being used by “everyone else”.

So for now, we should figure out what we need to plan for and rationally go about futurism policy instead of relying on media trends and biases.  Because time bombs are worst when they’re invisible.