Computers, Society, and Nature

“Scaling up” appears to be the key phrase in this article. The volume of data that we are amassing has gotten to the scale that we need infrastructure that streamlines massive processes and transfers of data between different fields. The tone of the article is extremely enthusiastic, and certainly the possibilities are compelling. Massive-scale agent-based-modeling may get to the point where each of us has our “own” agent that is intimately programmed to us. Disease control is a situation where this kind of thing could be very practical. However, this article offers no insight on the ethical level and I think this is a serious omission. It is troubling that it is now possible to perform sophisticated analyses on tens of millions of tweets on Twitter in a few seconds. The application for emergency response is no doubt useful, but powerful forces in our society seem to be gaining more ability to sort through all the noise of everyone’s data, and I think this should be discussed at least briefly. Perhaps such a discussion would make the NSF less eager to grant millions of dollars to the author’s institution, as they have been doing. On a different note, I like the idea of these infrastructures as an eco-system, as they are called in the paper. Perhaps the organisms that inhabit this ecosystem will be the agents that are intimately programmed to us, so that we’ll all have holograms in a parallel universe. It reminds me a bit of Ray Kurzweil’s idea of singularity, where we all upload our consciousness onto the cloud. The technology described in the article is still a long way from that, of course.

-Yojo

Claudio Aporta and Eric Higgs (2005) present the integration of GPS into Inuit life as an example of a greater pattern of technological change on human engagement. I was taught by George Wenzel about the introduction of new technologies into Inuit life and how it affected social and cultural practices. However, this article expands my knowledge of technology as a factor that limits our understanding of the original methods behind the devices. While the Inuit example is useful due to a more spatially and culturally isolated population, the ideas from this text can be expanded to the wider world.

This piece talks about the loss of knowledge, social engagement, and connection with the local environment. We should also ask what do we gain from making our lives easier and limiting interactions with the environment? Do we gain a greater understanding of different information? Do we gain other forms of meaningful interactions? Or is the loss irreparable?

Let’s look at the evolution of human beings; is this just a result of the process – as humans evolve they evolve out of their environment? The evolution of technology is referenced many times but I wished that this piece went in an even more philosophical direction and asked questions about human evolution as well. I think that now, 10 years after this article was written, we can assume that technology has started to merge with permanent human behavioural changes. The authors allude to this by stating; “it is not unrealistic to suppose that [GPS technology] will at some point become so integrated into a larger ecology of technologies that its presence will be hardly noticed. (748)” Yet is this simply the price of evolution? Do we ever look back on a previous period of change and even recognize the loss, or, in our further evolved state just conclude it was inevitable?

I think that in this case GIScience provides hope. I see it as a way to understand the methods behind the technology or to use technology to create new, and potentially meaningful, understandings of the world around us. As the authors concluded, finding meaning in a life full of technology might be more difficult, but it is still possible.

-Vdev

The article by Aporta and Higgs examines the shift in Inuit culture from traditional means of wayfinding to GPS based navigating. In an article writing about the shift away from traditional means of wayfinding I was worried that the authors would overlook the fact that Inuit have been open to many technological developments such as the snowmobile or rifle. Therefore it was good that they qualified their argument by first giving a historical overview of Inuit adoption of technology and incorporation into their culture. The article then looks at what the GPS provides, all the obvious advantages, including safety, efficiency, simplicity, and its disadvantage, which is a disengagement with the environment. What the article fails to answer is how important this disengagement is to the Inuit experience of the environment. The article mentions that the allure of technology in reducing labour has usually resulted in more negatives. Even if I agree with the authors’ findings, I’m not sure what the point is other than lamenting a lost era. As they write about earlier, Inuit have always been quick to adopt new technologies. Their economic structures have adapted to resettlement in town, their hunting techniques have adapted to rifles and snowmobiles, their forms of protest have adapted to the internet, and now there wayfinding will change with the adoption of GPS.

-Anontarian

Aporta and Higgs use the example of GPS integration into Inuit culture to explore the relationship between humans and modern technology. The introduction of GPS systems into a society that had previously depended on the persistence of traditional wayfinding knowledge (incorporating wind patterns, snowdrift patterns, astronomical observation, animal movement patterns, and other natural phenomena) presented the researchers with a case where a single technology promised to “deeply modify and cause disengagement from a well-established approach […] to the environment” on which the Inuit so closely depend.

The authors invoke Albert Borgmann’s theory of technology, in particular his “device paradigm,” which holds that contemporary technologies (‘devices’) mediate our engagement with our surroundings (and arguably reality itself) by reducing the amount of complex interaction required for their use. The GPS is therefore the “perfect Borgmannian device,” according to Aporta and Higgs, in that it removes the need to engage with local conditions, it’s easy to use, and provides instantaneous results.

The authors reach a reasonable conclusion: that the introduction of new technologies ought to be analysed within ecological, relational frameworks ­that take into account the effects on society that they may wreak. My main concern is that the fundamental reasons arguing in favour of a cautious or even reactionary approach to the introduction of new technologies rests fundamentally on existential reasoning; while ‘enlightenment’ positivism ultimately argues a materialist case. The material and existential consequences of the enlightenment are innumerable, arguably ranging from brutal death machines and concentration camps to the significant extension of the human lifespan and reduction in physical pain, declines in infant mortality, etc. While the introduction of new technologies has helped to lead humanity down the darkest paths in history, I believe that reactions like Borgmann’s are indeed prelapsarian or quixotic, and tend to elevate the importance of abstract types of thought and engagement above the hard realities of material life: is there enough food? Do we have adequate leisure time? And so on.

To return to the question of GPS and the Inuit, there is a telling line where it is postulated that Borgmann ‘would counsel that GPS technology is well deployed as an adjunct to Inuit navigation instead of as the central or dominant device for wayfinding.’ Ultimately, such counsel would amount to nagging based on very abstract notions of value, and would have little place in a harsh arctic environment. While I feel that critical engagement with new technology is essential, romantic associations with the past have little to contribute to the project of liberating people from material hardship. Rather, we should be thinking about how to address the changes technology makes to the distribution of power in society, and how to maximize its numerous beneficial capacities while managing its tendency to concentrate expertise and power in the hands of the few.

What Rundstrom has done in this paper is highlight the large rift between Euro-North American and Indigenous American school of geographic thought. I find it quite obvious that these differences exist, but never would I have thought to compare the methods of spatial cognition used by natives such as the Inuit and Hopi to those used by proponents of GIS and GI Science. I am a product of colonialism and the Euro-American school of thought, and more recently the Euro-Canadian school of GIS, so to me it seems obvious the only way of analyzing spatial phenomena is to treat nature as non-human objects to be taken out of context and subdivided into layers and databases.

Rundstrom compares this Spatial analyst way of thinking with Native American practices of spirituality and the passage of knowledge. An example of these two practices would be how the Hopi treat water as a spiritual entity, and the selective process through which Native Americans pass down geographic knowledge. At first, I found this ridiculous. Why compare an advanced technological system with the teachings of my high school history classes? I was well aware of the Native’s oneness with nature and their uncanny abilities to communicate with their surroundings, but how can their primitive technology compare to the advanced methods we use today and at the time of this papers publishing?

Smitty_1

For me the most striking aspect of this article relates to differing attitudes toward uncertainty. I have done extensive reading on uncertainty for my upcoming seminar and uncertainty is regarded in textbooks as something to be “aware of” and “open about”, as if it were an affliction. By contrast, Rundstrom points out that many indigenous cultures consider uncertainty (in particular ambiguity) to be a key enriching element of existence. Of course, this idea is not alien to western cultures, as we also find that the deepest of meanings are intangible. Furthermore, we are theoretically aware that in reality most strict boundaries and definitions are socially constructed. However, GIScience still seems to be fundamentally incapable of helping us to view uncertainty positively, because ultimately a GIS must work with either objects or pixels. Taking this into consideration, we should certainly heed Rundstrom’s warning that the effort to promote GIS in indigenous communities is likely to further suffocate indigenous worldviews. On the other hand, we must take care not to look at indigenous communities as passive entities with no agency. In many situations indigenous people may feel that in order for their communities to thrive while surrounded by non-indigenous civilization, they must forge a connection with us so that they can “manage” us. GIS could easily fit into this type of strategy. Ultimately, I think that as GIS practitioners we will have to scrutinize every application of GIS to indigenous culture to so as to discern whether it is truly a decision made by indigenous communities to use GIS or if it is imposed on them from outside with a colonial mindset.

– Yojo

The first reading So go downtown gave an introduction to agent-based modelling. As mentioned in the article, one of the large limitations of the model is that pedestrians are generated according to a Poisson distribution. Similar to the train example, I would propose that it limits this model for use on campuses where large numbers of students are released at once at regular time intervals. That being said, this article is more than 10 years old and I’m sure agent-based modelling has progressed rapidly since then. Advances in CPU capabilities likely allow researchers to simulate way more agents with a more complex set of behaviors and landscapes.
Reading Prof. Sengupta and Prof. Sieber’s article Geospatial Agents, Agents Everywhere, I was excited to learn that the models have progressed and been applied to several scenarios from movement in alpine environments to shopping behavior. One of the most interesting applications mentioned in the article was a system that could vary highway tolls based on traffic density. This immediately reminded me of the car sharing service Uber, which currently varies its fares based on demand. Uber would likely be interested in traffic-predicting geospatial agent models, so that their cars could both avoid traffic and be well located to pick up passengers before they even request a lift. For example when a large event ends traditional taxis may have exclusive rights to park right outside the venue, forcing Uber cars to linger a couple blocks away. By using geospatial agent modelling, the Uber cars could predict crowd behavior leaving the concert and better distribute their cars to better compete with traditional taxis.
Fares could even become geofenced, so that zones with a high predicted agent density receive a higher fare bracket than low density zones. In this scenario Uber could entice more cars into specific areas before they are needed, and influence crowd behavior by encouraging thrifty pedestrians to enter zones of low predicted density.
-anontarian

Haklay et al’s article “So Go Downtown” describes an intricate model of pedestrian movement, STREETS. I began the article somewhat skeptical of the need for such a model (is it not good enough to simply collect enough data on pedestrians?) and the capacity of the model to think of everything; for example, agents deviating from their agenda, socioeconomic status, etc. Nearly every “but what about…” was answered in the article, and I was surprised by the complexity of the model and how much it takes into account. I also found the combination of raster, vector and network data to be fascinating: often in our education, these data models are taught as disparate and we do not use them in conjunction. This article started to give me an idea of the ways that these data models can, in fact, be used together.

One problem with the model that the authors raise is that the town is “spatially closed” – the town in the model is a bubble, with no competing towns or suburbs nearby. The authors recognize that adding further complexity by expanding what is a closed model would be an incredible task. It is difficult to place boundaries on what should and should not be included in a model – it requires making serious choices about what is significant enough to be included in the micro world of the model.

Clearly, there is room for expansion and improvement in the modeling and simulation realm of GIScience, as existing models are modified and new ones are created.

– denasaur